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U.N. panel to rule on Julian Assange
01:33 - Source: CNN

Story highlights

U.N. Working Group rules Julian Assange is being unlawfully detained

Sweden says a U.N. panel statement "has no formal impact" on its own investigation

London police will arrest Assange if he leaves the Ecuadorian Embassy, official says

London CNN  — 

A U.N. rights working group found Friday that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been arbitrarily detained by being forced to hole up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid arrest.

Assange, who is wanted in Sweden for alleged sex offenses, has been in the embassy for three and a half years. He has said he fears Sweden will extradite him to the United States, where he could face the death penalty for revealing government secrets.

Assange had said in advance of the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention’s announcement Friday that, if the panel found in his favor, he wanted police to return his passport and leave him alone.

But there is no assurance that will happen. Authorities don’t have to listen to him or the U.N. Any judgment by the U.N. working group would be only a “moral recommendation,” not legally binding.

So if Assange steps on that west London sidewalk for the first time since 2012, he is still likely to be arrested in Britain on sex crime charges for alleged crimes in Sweden that date back several years.

CNN’s Greg Botelho, Jack Maddox, Salma Abdelaziz and Pierre Meilhan contributed to this report.