Julian Assange to see Swedish charges expire

Sexual abuse charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange will expire Thursday as Swedish prosecutors have failed to question him for events dating back to 2010, local media reported on Wednesday.

Charges of sexual molestation and one of unlawful coercion were set to terminate five years after the events allegedly took place, with another molestation count ending next week.

"He will not be sentenced for the crimes, nor will he be acquitted," Claes Borgstrom, a lawyer representing one of the alleged victims, told the news agency TT.

Swedish prosecutors have been unable to conduct a second hearing with Assange - who has been holed up at the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012 for fear of being extradited to the Nordic country - and have therefore been unable to formally charge him under Swedish law.

Assange was questioned once in 2010 before he travelled to England, where the free speech activist failed to have Sweden's extradition warrant for him struck down by local courts.

Swedish authorities initially demanded Assange be questioned in Sweden but in March this year agreed he could be met in London.

Swedish authorities told daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter that a judicial treaty with Ecuador is required before the case can proceed, but that one would not be in place before the three charges expire on Thursday.

The rape charge filed by one of Assange's alleged victims will not expire until 2020. Endit