He was not "charged", because that's not a Swedish word.
But all the courts involved in the matter, in Sweden and abroad, have come to the conclusion, that the procedural state Assange is in, is equivalent to the English word "charged".
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You are getting fed a lie.
Sweden can formally indict Assange anytime. The problem is that doing this would require the prosecutor to move her case beyond the "preliminary investigation" stage, at which point she would have to file actual evidence of the crime with the court and release it to Assange (who could publish it and show the prosecution for the farce that it quite obviously is). Indicting Assange would also make it impossible for the Swedish authorities to detain him indefinitely without trial (something otherwise possible in Sweden in the case of "preliminary investigations"). And the indictment would also make it possible for Assange to challenge his extradition on the basis of actual charges instead of vague and unsubstantiated allegations.
The Swedish prosecution was obviously interested in having their warrant evaluated on the much narrower question of whether it was technically valid.
The terminology dance you are referring to played out because while Sweden wanted to extradite Assange without coughing up any evidence supporting their case, it is not legal to extradite a subject for mere questioning. So for the arrest warrant to be technically valid, the Swedish prosecutor had to insist that while Assange was technically wanted only for questioning and no decision had been made to indict him, the prosecution was in an "advanced" state and he was virtually guaranteed to be charged. Anyone can see sections 142 and 144 (ii) from the High Court Ruling to watch the dance in action:
If we are analyzing the words, then the term rape also get a qualifier. He is accused of initiating sex with a women who was half-asleep, which falls under "helpless state" in the rape laws.
The confusion is caused by Swedish laws having specific crimes and categories of crimes, in which "rape" is both a specific crime and a category.
Rule of thumb: If you have a law that allows someone to say the words "legitimate rape" without sounding like an idiot, change it.
In the law of England & Wales can you be charged without being taken in to custody?
I thought those on the run were "wanted for questioning concerning allegations of ..." and then when arrested they would be "charged under $statute for $crime" and read their rights, etc.?
In Assange's case, he didn't escape after being charged did he so ...? Can someone clear this up for me, thanks.
See for example: https://www.gov.uk/charged-crime/overview which doesn't quite answer this specific question. But https://www.gov.uk/arrested-your-rights says [roughly] after arrest you will be "charged with a crime" or released.
The critical point here is that British law has nothing to do with it. British police is co-operating only because of international treaties and obligations (europol etc) on handling fugitives from other countries. The effort intensity is suspect and likely politically motivated, but it's quite clear that Assange did not break any British law.
Sorry I think I misread the meaning of the parent.
>the procedural state Assange is in, is equivalent to the English word "charged". //
I thought they meant the English word being used in legal terms - so that's where the application of English law comes in to the equation. Hence I was asking if in England & Wales if the term "charged" could be actually applied to Assange's situation if the investigation and proceedings thus far had happened in England & Wales.
He did not break any British law until he jumped bail into the embassy. Once he exits the embassy Assange will still have to clean that up. Based on the amount of money being spent to monitor him in embassy I wouldn't expect them to let Assange off lightly.
> But all the courts involved in the matter, in Sweden and abroad, have come to the conclusion, that the procedural state Assange is in, is equivalent to the English word "charged".
The procedure is different enough that there are meaningful substantive differences even though that may be the closest equivalent in American terms (it seems, though, that its really not, and the state he is in is more like someone who is both an uncharged suspect and subject to arrest as a material witness.)