WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrested- latimes.com
Julian Assange is ordered to remain in custody in Britain until a hearing next week on the WikiLeaks founder's possible extradition to Sweden, where he's wanted for questioning over allegations he sexually assaulted two women.
Reporting from London —
Julian Assange, the founder of the controversial WikiLeaks website, was arrested here Tuesday and ordered to remain in custody until a hearing next week on his possible extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations that he sexually assaulted two women.
Assange, 39, turned himself in to police Tuesday morning, hours after Britain received a formal warrant for his arrest from Swedish authorities. Assange denies any wrongdoing and says he will fight the attempt to extradite him, beginning with a hearing Dec. 14.
That could be the start of a legal battle that could drag on for weeks or even months, in part because the case against him in Sweden remains rather murky. Assange, who is Australian, is eager to avoid extradition for fear that it could set the stage for him to be sent to the U.S. if prosecutors there charge him with offenses relating to the WikiLeaks disclosures of State Department diplomatic cables and classified Pentagon files related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Get dispatches from Times correspondents around the globe delivered to your inbox with our daily World newsletter. Sign up »
Those leaked files have turned Assange into an international figure, vilified by the U.S. and governments around the world for spilling official secrets but lionized by activists demanding a free flow of information. In Washington, the Obama administration blames Assange for recklessly damaging U.S. relations with other countries and even aiding terrorists.
A spokesman for WikiLeaks vowed that Assange's arrest would not affect the website's plans to continue publishing its cache of confidential documents.
The accusations against Assange in Sweden have dogged him since the summer, before his organization began releasing portions of its huge trove of rifled State Department cables. The allegations stem from separate sexual encounters he had with two women in August, which Swedish prosecutors say may have involved molestation, "unlawful coercion" and rape.
Assange insists that the liaisons were consensual. His lawyer, Mark Stephens, characterizes the case as a "dispute over consensual but unprotected sex."
Assange's supporters accuse the U.S. of pushing the case behind the scenes as a way of embarrassing, harassing and silencing him.
Tuesday's arrest came as the net around Assange and WikiLeaks continued to tighten.
Several days ago, Amazon.com booted WikiLeaks from its Internet servers, and the online pay service PayPal also severed its links with the website. On Monday, a Swiss bank froze an account Assange had opened to raise funds, and on Tuesday, Visa announced that it too was suspending its business with WikiLeaks, the Associated Press reported.
Stephens has denounced Sweden as "one of the lickspittle states" that have kowtowed to American demands in the past, particularly by assisting in the controversial practice of "extraordinary rendition" of terrorism suspects.
The lawyer also asserts that Assange has been willing from the start to cooperate with Swedish authorities in their investigation, but that his offers to submit to some form of questioning, both in Sweden while he was still in the country and later in London, were repeatedly rebuffed.
"We are in the rather exotic position of not having seen any of the evidence [of the crimes] that Mr. Assange is accused of," Stephens told reporters after Tuesday's preliminary hearing.
In a packed London courtroom Tuesday afternoon, Assange formally refused voluntary extradition to Sweden and asked to be released on bail. Throughout the hourlong hearing, Assange, in a dark suit, sat quietly in a glassed-in booth reserved for defendants.
Prosecutors objected to the bail request, saying that Assange's nomadic lifestyle made him a flight risk. They noted that he first gave the court only a post office box as an address and, when that was disallowed, a street address in Victoria state in his native Australia.
The judge sided with the prosecution, despite the presence of several high-profile people willing to act as Assange's bond guarantors, including the British filmmaker Ken Loach and socialite Jemima Khan, the former wife of famed Pakistani cricket player Imran Khan.
Stephens called the outcome "unfortunate" but said Assange would make another bail application.
"This is going to go viral," he said. "Many people believe Mr. Assange to be innocent, myself included. Many people believe the prosecution to be politically motivated."
He expressed confidence that Britain's judicial system was "robust enough" not to be intimidated by political pressure, but declared the same could not be said for Sweden's.
The case has been a somewhat tortuous one, with Swedish authorities disagreeing among themselves as to whether there were grounds to pursue Assange for questioning. Last month, a court in Stockholm paved the way for a warrant to be issued against Assange, who by then was staying at an undisclosed location in Britain.
The first warrant apparently contained an error, which prevented British authorities from executing it until a corrected version was issued. The amended European arrest warrant was served Monday; by that evening, Stephens signaled that his client would turn himself in.
The warrant is an instrument that allows for quicker-than-usual extradition between European nations. If Assange is sent back to Sweden, and if authorities there decide enough evidence exists to prosecute him for sex crimes, he could face several years in prison if found guilty.
1 comment:
Can the government be specific what is so threatening, because NO ONE DIED by the cables released. Was the leak so careless ? People did die because the same amount of money did go to Foreign Affair as to public health care.
We NEED proper steering mechanism to survive the global society we created with technology. Transparency/involvement is needed. It's urgent, at this moment our society has an obsolete 200 years old steering mechanism. How can a few wise leaders understand these complex global issues pending ?
Would we have gone to Iraq over Weapons of mass destruction is we were part of the diplomatic cable discussion ?
Better of with more transparency ? Credit Crises / Cable gate shows governments are not so much in control of the global society. Wasn't it work of the press to tell us the truth ?
Can the government be specific what is so threatening, because NO ONE DIED by the cables released. People did die because the same amount of money did go to Foreign Affair as to public health care.
At least the cork out of the bottle. Fact is that secrets are harder to keep anno 2010. Shutting down is naive. Discuss it is the only option.. If democracy fails, the only solution is MORE democracy!. Fill the streets and discuss where the press fails.
Post a Comment