Swedish Supreme Court to hear Assange's appeal

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, April 28 (UPI) -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's legal appeal to overturn an arrest warrant will be heard by Sweden's Supreme Court, the court announced Tuesday.

A Swedish district court issued a detention order in 2010 after he was accused of raping a woman and molesting another in Stockholm in 2010. Assange, who has not been charged and denied the accusations, has avoided extradition to Sweden by maintaining asylum, since 2012, in London's Ecuadorian embassy. A previous appeal to remove the arrest warrant was denied by a Swedish appeals court in 2014.

Some of Assange's alleged crimes will reach a statute of limitations for prosecution in August, and Swedish prosecutors have announced their willingness to question him in London.

Assange, 43, an Australian citizen, fears that if he extradited from Britain to Sweden to face the charges, he could then be extradited to the United States, where he could be tried for publishing thousands of classified government documents. Thus far the United States has not charged him with any crime, or sought his extradition.