COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A Swedish newspaper says three members who quit the prestigious body that awards the Nobel Prize in Literature amid a scandal are returning to the Swedish Academy.

The Svenska Dagbladet daily says former Academy permanent secretary Sara Danius, Kjell Espmark and Peter Englund will rejoin the secretive 18-member body. They were among seven Academy members who stepped down as a sex-abuse and financial crimes scandal engulfed the body, and in May the academy announced that no prize will be awarded this year.

Espmark told the daily on Thursday that "we are ready to help out."

In June, Swedish prosecutors charged the man at the center of the scandal with two counts of rape of a woman in 2011. Jean-Claude Arnault, husband of Academy member Katarina Frostenson, has denied the allegations.