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UK court grants Assange extradition appeal

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been granted permission to appeal against extradition from Britain to Sweden over rape allegations and a hearing will start on February 1, a court said Friday.

Published: 16 December 2011 14:44 CET
UK court grants Assange extradition appeal

“The Supreme Court has granted permission to appeal and a hearing has been scheduled for two days, beginning on 1 February 2012,” said a statement from the Supreme Court, the highest court in England.

The decision means Assange will spend a second Christmas at the country mansion of a wealthy supporter in Norfolk, eastern England.

He was arrested last December on a European arrest warrant issued by Sweden after allegations by two women of sexual assault and rape.

The 40-year-old Australian strongly denies any wrongdoing and says the sex with the women was consensual.

He believes the allegations are politically motivated and linked to WikiLeaks’ release of hundreds of thousands of classified US files about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Supreme Court decision comes as Bradley Manning, the US soldier accused of passing the files to WikiLeaks, is due to make his first appearance in a US court on Friday.

The hearing will determine whether the former intelligence analyst, who turns 24 on Saturday, should be tried on charges which could see him sentenced to life imprisonment.

Manning is accused of downloading 260,000 US diplomatic cables, videos of US air strikes and US military reports from Afghanistan and Iraq between November 2009 and May 2010 while serving in Iraq, and transferring them to WikiLeaks.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking on the eve of Manning’s hearing, said it was a “very unfortunate and damaging action… that put at risk individuals and relationships.”

Manning’s supporters say his health has sharply deteriorated while in custody.

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SPAIN

Spanish ring ‘tried to extort €3m from Wikileaks’: Assange lawyers

Julian Assange's lawyers have filed a court complaint in Spain against a group of Spaniards they allege extorted the WikiLeaks founder and Ecuador's foreign ministry, a source in his defence team said on Saturday.

Published: 27 April 2019 15:22 CEST
Spanish ring 'tried to extort €3m from Wikileaks': Assange lawyers
A video grab shows Julian Assange being driven away by British police after his arrest. Photo: AFP
Assange, who for seven years lived holed up in London's Ecuadoran embassy where he had taken refuge to avoid extradition to Sweden on rape accusations, was arrested on April 11 after Quito terminated his asylum.
   
The 47-year-old founder of WikiLeaks, which exposed everything from US military secrets to the wealthy's tax evasion, is now awaiting sentencing for breaching his British bail conditions in 2012.
 
The source, who wished to remain anonymous, said the complaint was against “a group of Spaniards who allegedly engaged in extortion and the embassy's employees and Ecuador's foreign ministry.”
   
The source added an investigation was ongoing and alleged “espionage” in the embassy against Assange, refusing to give further details.
 
According to Spanish media reports, four Spaniards have videos and personal documents of Assange. Online daily eldiario.es said they somehow got these via an alleged spying system set up in the embassy that included security cameras and employees taking photos of all documents handled by Assange.
   
They allegedly tried to extort three million euros ($3.3 million) out of WikiLeaks not to publish any of it, Spanish media report.
   
Eldiario.es, which had access to the written complaint that was filed to Spain's top-level National Court, says Assange's lawyers also accuse Ecuador of spying on him. The National Court could not comment when contacted by AFP.
 
That contrasts with Ecuadoran President Lenin Moreno's version of events. In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, he alleged Assange had tried to set up a “centre for spying” in Ecuador's embassy.
   
Last year, Quito cut his internet and mobile phone access, accusing him of breaking “a written commitment” not to interfere in its and allies' foreign policies.
   
The move infuriated Assange, who sued the government for violating his “fundamental rights” by limiting his access to the outside world.
   
Now in prison in Britain, Assange is also fighting a US extradition warrant relating to the release by WikiLeaks of a huge cache of official documents.
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