A Swedish appeals court on Friday upheld an arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange over a 2010 rape accusation, rejecting his request to have it lifted.
The court announced in a statement that Assange "is still detained in absentia", adding that it "shares the assessment of the (lower) district court that Julian Assange is still suspected on probable cause of rape... and that there is a risk that he will evade legal proceedings or a penalty."
Assange has always refused to travel to Stockholm for questioning over the allegation, which he denies, due to concerns Sweden will extradite him to the United States over WikiLeaks' release of 500,000 secret military files on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Friday's hearing was the eighth time the European arrest warrant was tested in a Swedish court, with all seven previous rulings having gone against him.
The 45-year-old Australian sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in June 2012 after exhausting all his legal options in Britain against extradition to Sweden.
The hearing came a day after WikiLeaks released medical records claiming Assange's mental health was at risk if he remained confined in the embassy.
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