WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange was scheduled to appear in a London court yesterday seeking to fight his extradition to Sweden in a sex-crimes investigation and trying to secure bail after being held a week in a British prison cell.
The 39-year-old Australian was ordered held in prison custody by a judge at a hearing on Dec. 7 after surrendering himself to Scotland Yard to answer a Swedish arrest warrant.
Assange is wanted for questioning after two women accused him of sexual misconduct in separate encounters in Sweden over the summer.
Lawyers for Assange say he -denies the allegations and would contest the attempt to extradite him for questioning.
He was to be represented in court by Geoffrey Robertson, a former appeals judge at the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone who has specialized in freedom of speech cases. Robertson’s former clients include author Salman Rushdie.
Supporters were planning to protest Assange’s detention outside the court, following a small rally on Monday outside Sweden’s embassy in London.
Some of Assange’s supporters suspect the extradition request has been motivated by WikiLeaks’ decision last month to begin publishing its trove of about 250,000 secret US diplomatic cables, something Swedish officials have denied.
The disclosures, which have continued unaffected since Assange was detained in prison, have offended some US allies and angered its rivals. Officials in Washington claim some other countries have already curtailed their dealings with the US government as a result.
At an hour-long court hearing last week, lawyer Gemma Lindfield — acting for Swedish police — said Assange is accused of rape, molestation and unlawful coercion.
She told the court one woman had accused Assange of pinning her down and refusing to use a condom during an encounter on Aug. 14 in Stockholm.
That woman also accused of Assange of molesting her in a way “designed to violate her sexual -integrity” several days later.
A second woman has accused Assange of having sex with her without a condom while he was a guest at her Stockholm home and she was asleep.
In Sweden, a person who has sex with an unconscious, drunk or sleeping person can be convicted of rape and sentenced to up to six years in prison.
Assange’s Swedish lawyer, Bjorn Hurtig, claims the courts are stacked against defendants in sex cases in Sweden.
However, a European Commission-funded study last year found only 10 percent of sex offenses reported in Sweden result in a conviction.
Lawyers for Assange said they would make a new application yesterday to have him freed on bail and would offer to post a hefty bond with the court.
Several -high-profile Britons — including socialite Jemima Khan and filmmaker Ken Loach — have offered to contribute ￡20,000 (US$31,500) each.
A decision on whether to extradite Assange is expected to take several weeks. Both Assange and the Swedish government are entitled to appeal against the ruling if the judge rules against them.
Britain’s government said on Monday that the country’s national security adviser believes government Web sites could be attacked in retribution if Assange is not released.
Government departments have been told they could be targeted by online “hacktivists,” following attacks on companies including MasterCard Inc, Visa Inc and PayPal Inc, which cut ties to the WikiLeaks site.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
RSS