LONDON: Prosecutors were questioning WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadoran embassy in London on Monday, the latest twist in the long-running legal battle over a rape allegation against him.
Swedish prosecutor Ingrid Isgren, due to be present while Assange faced a grilling by an Ecuadoran prosecutor, entered the embassy behind the famous Harrods department store shortly before 1000 GMT, an AFP photographer said.
Assange's lawyer Per Samuelsson said the questioning is expected to last several days at the embassy where the founder of the secret-spilling website has been holed up for four years, refusing to come out over fears he could be extradited to the United States.
"I am very hopeful," Samuelsson told Sweden's TT news agency. "Objectively, there is no doubt that everything happened as Assange said it did."
Assange, a 45-year-old Australian, sought refuge in the embassy in June 2012 after Sweden sought his arrest over allegations of rape and sexual assault. He has always denied the claims, saying they were politically motivated.
The former computer hacker insists his sexual encounters with the two women, who he met on a 2010 trip to Sweden, were consensual.
He has refused to travel to Sweden for questioning, fearing he could be extradited over WikiLeaks' explosive release of 500,000 US secret military files on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Swedish prosecutors dropped the sexual assault probe last year after the five-year statute of limitations expired.
But they still want to question him about the 2010 rape allegation, which carries a 10-year statute of limitations.
A small group of protesters gathered outside the embassy to greet the prosecutors, waving banners reading "Free Assange" and "You Won't Stop WikiLeaks".
"Freedom Loving People of the World Say Thank You Ecuador!" read another banner hung under the balcony from which Assange has sometimes addressed supporters.
But Elisabeth Fritz, the lawyer for Assange's alleged victim, said: "My client has been waiting six years for justice... It is time for this to go to trial."
She added in a statement: "We are expecting that the prosecutor will announce charges after this questioning and that these charges lead to a trial in a Swedish court."
A Swedish police inspector was also due to attend the questioning and investigators planned to take a DNA sample from Assange, subject to his agreement.
The grilling has been delayed in the past because of diplomatic disagreements between Ecuador and Sweden, making this the first time Assange has been interviewed over the matter since initial questioning by Swedish police at the time of the allegation.
Speaking through his lawyer, Assange has said he welcomes the "chance to clear his name" and hopes the investigation will subsequently close.
In May, a Swedish court reaffirmed the arrest order, rejecting the finding of a UN working group that his confinement in the Ecuadoran embassy amounted to arbitrary detention.