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@katiecouric : #TheBigStory: Swedish authorities announced today they would reopen an investigation into a rape allegation against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. because there was still probable cause to suspect that Assange had committed the crime in question. Assange, who previously was living in asylum at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, is in jail for jumping bail and the US is currently seeking extradition on a charge that stems from a leak of hundreds of thousands of documents, mostly related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that were published on Wikileaks. American authorities have accused Assange of conspiring with former Army intelligence analyst Chelseas Manning to crack an encoded password that would have permitted her to log into a classified Pentagon network under someone else’s identity. And now...some background on the Swedish case: The investigation began in 2010 after 2 women accused Julian Assange of assaulting them during separate sexual encounters while he was visiting Stockholm. The Swedish authorities issued a European arrest warrant seeking his extradition for questioning over “suspicion of rape, three cases of sexual molestation and illegal coercion.” Assange was arrested by the British police in 2011 and after a series of failed appeals while he was out on bail, he fled to the Ecuadorean Embassy to avoid extradition. One of Assange’s accusers in Sweden identified herself as Anna Ardin, and told local outlets Assange was “a man who has a twisted attitude toward women and a problem taking no for an answer.” Sweden dropped the initial investigation in May 2017, having concluded there was no way to proceed with the case as long as Assange was protected in the Ecuadorean embassy, but prosecutors indicted that they had not cleared him and reserved the right to reopen their inquiry. It is now up to the British courts to decide which extradition request takes precedent, the US or Sweden’s. Either way, the process could take 6 months to a year. #julia