WikiLeak's Assange extradition fight heads to UK Supreme Court

London February 01: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's extradition fight goes to Britain's Supreme Court on Wednesday for two days of hearings on whether he should be sent back to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault.

In November, Assange -- who is under house arrest -- lost a court battle to stay in Britain. The following month, the British High Court said he would be allowed to mount an appeal.

Assange's lawyers have vowed to take the fight all the way to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.

Two women in Sweden accused Assange in August 2010 of sexually assaulting them.

Although he has not been charged with a crime, Swedish prosecutors want to question him in connection with the allegations.

Swedish authorities allege that one unnamed woman agreed to have sex with him only if he wore a condom, and that he then had unprotected sex with her while she was asleep.

Assange denies wrongdoing and says the case is politically motivated.

The extradition case is not linked to Assange's work as founder and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, which has put him on the wrong side of U.S. authorities.

His organization, which facilitates the anonymous leaking of secret information, has published some 250,000 confidential U.S. diplomatic cables, causing embarrassment to the government and others.

It has also published hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. documents relating to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the organization has come under increasing financial pressure in recent months, leading Assange to announce in October that WikiLeaks was temporarily stopping publication to "aggressively fundraise" in order to stay afloat.

Take By: Siasat News

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Chomsky, 70 others oppose Assange's extradition

Leading world figures, including the distinguished American academic Noam Chomsky, British filmmaker Ken Loach and journalist and free speech campaigner John Pilger, have attacked the move to extradite the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to Sweden as they fear it could be a prelude to him being handed over to the Americans, who want to prosecute him for publishing classified documents. 

Sweden is seeking Mr. Assange's extradition over allegations of sexual assault brought by two Swedish women but he has challenged the proceedings and Britain's Supreme Court is to hear his appeal next month. 

In a statement on Monday, signed by more than 70 others including the former Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, they said: “We are concerned that should Mr. Assange be placed in Swedish custody, he will be subject to the process of ‘temporary surrender' enabling his removal to the United States without the appropriate legal processes that accompany normal extradition cases.” 

Arguing that the chances of Mr. Assange receiving a fair trial in the U.S. appeared “remote”, they said: “A number of prominent [U.S.] political figures have called for him to be assassinated, and Joe Biden, the Vice-President, has called him a ‘high-tech terrorist'. Given this atmosphere of hostility, we hold serious concerns about his safety in American custody.” 

The signatories pointed out that any prosecution of Mr. Assange in the U.S. would be “on the basis of his activities as a journalist and editor — Mr. Assange's status as such has been recently confirmed by the High Court in England”. “Such a prosecution would be a serious assault on freedom of speech and the need for an unfettered, independent media,” said the statement, 

Take By: The Hindu News

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