BRUSSELS
Founder of whistleblowing website Wikileaks Julian Assange has agreed to be questioned in London over rape allegations, his lawyer Thomas Olsson told Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter on Thursday.
Assange will be questioned by Swedish prosecutors at Ecuador's London embassy over allegations of rape and sexual assault on two women in Sweden in 2010.
“We have today sent a confirmation to prosecutors that Julian Assange agrees to be questioned. He assumes that the interrogation will follow the existing rules framework,” Olsson told Dagens Nyheter on Thursday.
The Australian-born hacker vehemently denies the accusations and says the sexual encounter with the women was consensual.
Swedish prosecutors had previously demanded that Assange come to Sweden for questioning about the 2010 allegations, but they offered in March to question him in London instead.
Assange took refuge inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London in June 19, 2012, in an attempt to avoid extradition to Sweden. Ecuador granted Assange political asylum in 2012, despite pressure from Britain.
Assange feared the Scandinavian country would extradite him to the U.S. for releasing thousands of highly-confidential documents on WikiLeaks.
