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2nd LD Writethru: UN report urges end to WikiLeaks founder's "arbitrary detention"

Xinhua, February 5, 2016 Adjust font size:

A latest report issued by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said Friday that the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been "arbitrarily detained" and the detention should "be brought to an end."

The report, adopted on December 4 last year and made public on Friday by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, also said that Assange should be afforded the right to compensation.

The Working Group believes that Assange's stay in the Ecuadorian embassy in London "has become a state of an arbitrary deprivation of liberty," the report said.

"The detention was arbitrary because he was held in isolation during the first stage of detention and because of the lack of diligence by the Swedish Prosecutor in its investigations, which resulted in the lengthy detention of Mr. Assange," it added.

The 44-year-old Australian took refuge in Ecuador's London embassy in 2012 after losing his appeal to the British Supreme Court against extradition to Sweden, where a judicial investigation was initiated against him in connection with allegations of sexual misconduct.

However, he was not formally charged.

"The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention considers that the various forms of deprivation of liberty to which Julian Assange has been subjected constitute a form of arbitrary detention," said Seong-Phil Hong, who currently heads the expert panel.

"The Working Group maintains that the arbitrary detention of Mr. Assange should be brought to an end, that his physical integrity and freedom of movement be respected, and that he should be entitled to an enforceable right to compensation," Mr. Hong added.

In the report, the Working Group considered that Assange had been subjected to different forms of deprivation of liberty: initial detention in Wandsworth Prison in London, followed by house arrest and then confinement at the Ecuadorian embassy.

Assange said earlier on Twitter that he will accept arrest by British police on Friday if the UN rules against him. He complained to the UN in 2014 that he was being "arbitrarily detained" as he could not leave the embassy without being arrested.

He denies allegations of wrongdoing stemming from two sexual encounters in Sweden in 2010, saying the rape charge is intended to extradite him to the United States, where officials have said he should be tried for spying and other crimes.

Since its founding in 2006, WikiLeaks has released massive confidential military documents on the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and compromising diplomatic cables, which have angered Washington. Endi