from preparing a defence against "the world's most powerful government". Melzer asked the UK government to stop Assange's extradition to the US, release him and allow him to "recover his health and rebuild his personal and professional life". More than 300 human rights lawyers and law professors criticized Melzer's approach to "allegations of sexual assault" in an open letter. While considering the "overarching argument" may merit attention, they wrote that they were "deeply disturbed by the way he approaches the allegations of sexual assault in this case". On the issue of sexual violence, they wrote that Melzer's intervention was "both legally erroneous and harmful to the development and protection of human rights law." Melzer stood by his statement that the evidence collected in Sweden was not a basis for investigating the suspected rape. The three initiators of the open letter welcomed Melzer's clarification. The Swedish prosecutor announced that the investigation had been dropped as of 19 November 2019. One of the women interviewed by Melzer later sharply criticised him and demanded his resignation. She said that by defining how a "proper rape-victim" would have to act, Melzer was engaging in victim blaming and that his report was partially "untrue and defamatory". Melzer published a statement in which he tried to resolve misunderstandings and expressed hope that they would not divert attention away from the problems in the case of Assange. In a January 2020 interview, Melzer said he had never seen a comparable case where a person was subjected to nine years of a preliminary investigation for rape without charges being filed. He said Assange's lawyers made more than 30 offers to arrange for Assange to visit Sweden in exchange for a guarantee that he would not be extradited to the U.S. and described such diplomatic assurances as routine international practice. Melzer made various criticisms of the Swedish prosecutors, including for changing one of the women's statements without her involvement in order to make it sound like a possible rape. Melzer said that the Swedish rape investigation was an abuse of process aimed at pushing Assange into a position from which he was unable to defend himself. Melzer's book, The Trial of Julian Assange: a Story of Persecution was published by Verso Books in February 2022. It recounts his investigation of Assange's case. Honours and awards Melzer's legal study called Targeted Killing in International Law was a joint-winner of the