Police in Sweden say they’re dropping the sexual assault charges against Julian Assange, not because he didn’t do it—a question of fact that will never be answered—but because he successfully holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London long enough that the statute of limitations has expired.

(Assange has been accused of coercing two Swedish women into unprotected sex in 2010; Swedish authorities say he purposely tore the condom he was using with at least one of the women. Assange says it’s all an elaborate “honeypot” to lure him to Sweden so he can be extradited to the U.S. to stand trial on espionage charges linked documents published on Wikileaks. I say, why can’t it be both?)

Anyway, Assange took the news well, bombastically speaking, via CNN:

On Thursday, Assange reacted to the news by lashing out at Swedish prosecutors over his legal troubles. “I am extremely disappointed,” he said in a statement. “There was no need for any of this. I am an innocent man. I haven’t even been charged.”

But despite his technical victory, the flaxen secret-leaker can’t leave his diplomatic Swedish rape bunker just yet—according to CNN, the still-pending rape charges against him won’t expire until 2020.

Still, he seems to be making do.


Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.