LONDON, Feb 6, (Agencies): It started more than five years ago as what appeared to be a fairly simple sex crime case: two women in Sweden came forward to accuse Julian Assange of sexual misconduct. Now the case has mutated into a complicated international drama involving Britain, Sweden, the United States, Ecuador, a host of human rights lawyers and the United Nations. But when the dust settles from an unexpected UN working group’s finding Friday that Assange has been unlawfully detained, the painful stalemate is expected to continue, and Assange -- though claiming full vindication -- will most likely remain cooped up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.

The panel said his stay at the embassy -- which he entered voluntarily in 2012 -- constitutes arbitrary detention and that he should be set free and compensated for lost time. Lawyer and legal blogger Carl Gardner said the finding “beggars belief” and pointed out it isn’t legally binding. “Nobody will have to do anything,” as a result of this finding, he said. The sex crime allegations came at the height of Assange’s fame as the founder of WikiLeaks, an organization that had made a name for itself by releasing hundreds of thousands of pages of classified government documents. He had challenged, and embarrassed, US officials with his disclosures, and feared a secret indictment in US courts that could lead to prosecution there. One woman said Assange intentionally damaged a condom and pinned her down while having sex.

A second woman said Assange had sex with her without a condom while she was asleep. In Sweden, having sex with an unconscious, drunk or sleeping person can lead to a rape conviction punishable by up to six years in prison. A Swedish investigation into the crimes was launched, then dropped for lack of evidence, and then started again as prosecutors sought to question Assange about possible molestation and rape. The computer hacker -- facing no criminal charges -- left Sweden for Britain, and the legal palaver begun. Once he left, it became much more complicated for Swedish prosecutors to determine if the evidence against him was convincing enough to merit a criminal charge.

When prosecutors decided they needed to question him about the women’s allegations, they sought an international arrest warrant for him that was issued in November, 2010. By then, Assange was in London, where he was seen by many as a hero in a “David versus Goliath” struggle pitting scrappy WikiLeaks against the mighty US government. He was the toast of the town -- at least among a group of wealthy friends from the film and media worlds who enjoyed the discomfort he brought to the high and mighty.

RightsThe arrest warrant would not go away, however, and Assange surrendered to police in London and was detained until his bail was granted. He got public support from filmmakers Oliver Stone and Michael Moore and human rights activist Bianca Jagger, and spent his time under court-ordered “house arrest” at a luxurious country estate owned by his friend, the journalist Vaughan Smith. Assange repeatedly said his resistance was based on the overriding fear that once he was in the hands of British or Swedish authorities, he would be extradited to the US to face trial there on charges related to his WikiLeaks work. He denied the sex charges, and said they were part of a larger conspiracy to land him in a maximum security US prison.

But Assange lost a series of legal attempts to block extradition. His final strategy failed in June, 2012 when Britain’s Supreme Court refused his bid to reconsider its earlier rejection of his appeal. Assange had come to an uncomfortable crossroads: Return to Sweden to answer questions or take radical action to place himself beyond the prosecutors’ reach. On June 19, he took those steps, calmly walking into the Embassy of Ecuador in central London to seek asylum. He’s been there ever since, in a prolonged state of legal limbo, unable even to stroll to a corner store. He occasionally entertained celebrity visitors like actor John Cusack and civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, but the flurry of magazine cover stories, books and even films about Assange started to subside as WikiLeaks generated fewer and fewer headlines. In 2013, it became clearer than ever that his stay inside the embassy was no longer really about the sex crime inquiries when he said he would stay inside even if the investigation was dropped for fear of extradition to the United States.

US officials have not revealed whether there is a secret indictment of Assange in US courts, but in 2015, US government representatives reiterated in court that a “sensitive” law enforcement investigation into WikiLeaks is ongoing. In March, a US federal court confirmed there are “active and ongoing” attempts to prosecute him and WikiLeaks in an investigation involving espionage, conspiracy, and computer fraud. Meanwhile, an attempt to question Assange inside the embassy -- which would presumably allow Swedish prosecutors to decide whether to pursue or drop the case -- has foundered because of sniping between Swedish and Ecuadorean officials. Last year, Swedish prosecutors dropped the molestation inquiries because of the statute of limitations. But the rape investigation remains open. The case seemed to be going nowhere until this week when a legal maneuver that had largely gone unnoticed paid big public relations dividends for Assange and his team. They had filed a complaint with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention against Sweden and Britain more than a year earlier charging that he had been unfairly detained.

ConsularAustralian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has met with lawyers for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and offered consular assistance for the Australian, after a UN panel ruled he had been arbitrarily detained for almost four years. “I met with members of the legal team for Julian Assange in London on Thursday afternoon, prior to the release of the report of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention,” Bishop said in a statement given to Reuters early Saturday. “I have now read the Report and I am seeking legal advice on its implications for Mr Assange, as an Australian citizen. I have confirmed with his lawyers that our offer of consular assistance stands should he require it.” Assange’s Australian lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper that the meeting with Bishop had been positive. British newspaper columnists on Saturday took aim at Julian Assange and the UN panel that found the antisecrecy campaigner had been “arbitrarily detained”.

The WikiLeaks founder, urged Britain to let him walk free from Ecuador’s London embassy following the panel’s findings Friday. The 44-year-old Australian, who has been in the embassy for approaching four years, has refused to go to Sweden, fearing deportation to the United States over WikiLeaks’ release of 500,000 secret military files. “So that settles it then -- everyone’s to blame except Julian Assange,” wrote Marina Hyde in The Guardian. “It is notable with Assange that the higher he has gone in his ‘quest for justice’, the smaller he has looked,” she wrote. “For my money he looks more and more like just another guy failing to face up to a rape allegation. “Given the UN panel is made up entirely of academics, seemingly devoid of judicial experience, nor any in either public international law or asylum/refugee law, its institutional competence verges on the intriguing.” Siobhan Fenton wrote in The Independent: “We have no idea if Julian Assange is a rapist -- so why are we are so opposed to finding out?” “For many, it seems that his work with WikiLeaks makes him above the law -- and makes it impossible for him to have committed sexual assault,” she wrote. “The dramatic charade of the last five years perfectly illustrates how, when it comes to sexual violence allegations, our society and some of our most important international institutions are still skewed in favour of privileged men.”

The newspaper’s main story on Assange said it had seemed for a few hours that he might leave the embassy in the hope that British police would not arrest him. “Instead, the 44-year-old Australian was faded into vision via a videolink,” it said. The Daily Telegraph’s story said the United Nations had been ridiculed over the findings of its experts. The Times said the UN panel had also accused Ecuador of routine torture and arbitrary detention. “The 2006 mission recorded evidence of torture and violence by police and the absence of records showing how many people were being held by authorities,” it said.