Julian Assange will be freed on bail and sent to stay at a British country mansion, a UK judge ruled yesterday, rejecting prosecutors’ attempts to keep the WikiLeaks founder in prison as he fights extradition to Sweden.
Cheers erupted from supporters outside the London court as the verdict by High Court Justice Duncan Ouseley was reported.
Assange’s lawyer, Mark Stephens, said he was “utterly delighted” with the judge’s ruling, which included an order that prosecutors pay his client’s court costs.
Prosecutors had argued there was a risk the 39-year-old Australian, who faces sex-crimes allegations in Sweden, would abscond if he was freed.
However, Ouseley said if Assange fled “he would diminish himself in the eyes of many of his supporters” — and make famous backers like filmmaker Michael Moore look foolish.
“I don’t accept that Mr. Assange has an incentive not to attend [court],” Ouseley said. “He clearly does have some desire to clear his name.”
Assange, dressed in a dark gray suit, smiled and gave a thumb’s up sign to a packed courtroom as he was led from the dock by guards.
It was not immediately clear how long it would take before he was released.
His lawyers need to produce the £200,000 (US$316,000) bail pledged by several wealthy supporters.
Stephens said yesterday that Assange would be released “sometime later today or on a worst-case analysis tomorrow.”
Assange was granted a conditional release on bail by a lower court on Tuesday, but prosecutors appealed.
Ouseley made some amendments to the earlier bail conditions.
Assange must wear an electronic tag, report to police every day and observe a curfew. He also must stay at a registered address — a 10-bedroom mansion in eastern England owned by Vaughan Smith, a WikiLeaks supporter and founder of London’s Frontline Club for journalists.
Assange has been in prison since Dec. 7, following his surrender to British police over a Swedish warrant. He denies any wrongdoing but is refusing to surrender to Sweden’s request to extradite him for questioning.
Two women have accused Assange of sexual misconduct — including rape, molestation and unlawful coercion — for separate incidents in August in Sweden. He has not been charged.
Assange’s lawyers say the allegations stem from a dispute over “consensual but unprotected sex” and say that he has offered to make himself available for questioning via video link or in person in Britain.
Last month WikiLeaks deeply angered US officials by beginning to publish its trove of 250,000 secret US diplomatic cables.
Assange’s supporters suspect the claims against him are politically motivated — a charge Sweden has denied.
Lawyer Gemma Lindfield, acting for Sweden, said the charges had enhanced Assange’s reputation among his supporters, who “view it as part of the wider conspiracy.”
She said given Assange’s nomadic lifestyle and loose ties to some of those promising bond, there was “a real risk” he would flee.
The judge said when Assange arrived in Britain, he had asked his lawyers to contact police so they would know where he was.
“That is not the conduct of a person who is seeking to evade justice,” Ouseley said.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
UNWAVERING: Paraguay remains steadfast in its support of Taiwan, but is facing growing pressure at home and abroad to switch recognition to Beijing, Pena said Paraguayan President Santiago Pena has pledged to continue enhancing cooperation with Taiwan, as he and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida expressed opposition to any unilateral change to the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait using force, Japanese media reported on Saturday. Kishida yesterday completed a trip to France, Brazil and Paraguay, his first visit to South America since taking office in 2021. After the Japanese leader and Pena spoke for more than an hour on Friday, exchanging views on the situation in East Asia in the face of China’s increasing military pressure on Taiwan, they affirmed that “unilateral attempts to change the