Earlier, Swedish Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Eva-Marie Persson said that prosecutors would reopen a preliminary investigation into the sexual assault allegations against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who is currently being detained in the United Kingdom.

Swedish Deputy Director of Public Prosecution Eva-Marie Persson said on Monday that she had requested a district court in the Swedish city of Uppsala to issue a warrant for arresting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

READ MORE: WikiLeaks Sees Chance to Clear Assange's Name as Rape Case Reopened in Sweden

"I have requested the district court to arrest Assange in absentia on suspicions of rape. If the court rules to arrest him, I will issue a European arrest warrant that will imply his extradition to Sweden," Persson said, as quoted in the press release of the Swedish Prosecution Authority.

The warrant, if granted, would be the first stage in a process to extradite Assange from the UK.

Sweden brought rape allegations against Assange back in 2010, after which the Wikileaks founder decided to seek political asylum to avoid being extradited to the United States to potentially face the death penalty for leaking secret documents related to the US role in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The case was dropped by Swedish prosecutors in 2017. However, following Assange's arrest in 2019, Sweden once again raised the issue of the unresolved rape case.

Meanwhile, the United States is seeking Assange's extradition on charges of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.

READ MORE: Swedish Probe: How Assange Sexual Assault Case Unfolded Over the Years

The world-famous whistleblower was arrested in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on 11 April, after Ecuador had revoked his asylum status. He was then sentenced to 50 weeks in jail for jumping his bail back in 2012, when he took refuge inside the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden over the sexual assault investigation.