The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, is tonight facing growing legal problems around the world, with the US announcing that it was investigating whether he had violated its espionage laws.
Assange's details were also added to Interpol's worldwide wanted list. Dated 30 November, the entry reads: "sex crimes" and says the warrant has been issued by the international public prosecution office in Gothenburg, Sweden. "If you have any information contact your national or local police." It reads: "Wanted: Assange, Julian Paul," and gives his birthplace as Townsville, Australia.
Friends said earlier that Assange was in a buoyant mood, however, despite the palpable fury emanating from Washington over the decision by WikiLeaks to start publishing more than a quarter of a million mainly classified US cables. He was said to be at a secret location somewhere outside London, along with fellow hackers and WikiLeaks enthusiasts.
In contrast to previous WikiLeaks releases, Assange has, on this occasion, kept a relatively low profile. His attempt to give an interview to Sky News via Skype was thwarted today by a faulty internet connection.
But he was able to give an interview to Time magazine in which he called for Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, to resign. "She should resign, if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering US diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations, in violation of the international covenants to which the US has signed up. Yes, she should resign over that," he said.
Assange's reluctance to emerge in public is understandable. It comes amid a rapid narrowing of his options. Several countries are currently either taking – or actively considering – aggressive legal moves against him. This lengthening list includes Sweden, Australia and now the US – but so far as can be made out, not Britain.
The US attorney general, Eric Holder, announced yesterday that the justice department and Pentagon are conducting "an active, ongoing criminal investigation" into the latest Assange-facilitated leak under Washington's Espionage Act.
It was not immediately clear whether Holder was referring to Bradley Manning, the dissident US private suspected of being the original source of the leak, or Assange. The inquiry by US federal authorities is made tricky by Assange's citizenship – he is Australian – and the antediluvian nature of the law's pre-internet-era 1917 statutes.
According to the Washington Post, no charges against anyone from WikiLeaks are imminent. But asked how the US could prosecute Assange, a non-US citizen, Holder struck an ominous note. "Let me be clear. This is not sabre-rattling," he said, vowing to swiftly "close the gaps" in current US legislation.
But Assange's most pressing headache is Sweden. Swedish prosecutors have issued an international and European arrest warrant (EAW) for him in connection with rape allegations, and the warrant has been upheld by a Swedish appeal court.
Assange strongly denies any wrongdoing but admits having unprotected but consensual encounters with two women during a visit to Sweden in August.
Mark Stephens, his London-based lawyer, has described the allegations as "false and without basis", adding that they amount to persecution as part of a cynical smear campaign.
Nonetheless, the Swedes appear determined to force Assange back to Sweden for questioning. Stockholm's director of public prosecutions, Marianne Ny, said last month: "So far, we have not been able to meet with him to accomplish the interrogation."
Assange contests this too. But if he declines to return to Sweden voluntarily, and the UK decides to enforce Sweden's arrest warrant, things may get tricky. Some friends believe Assange's best strategy is not to go to ground but to get on a plane to Sweden and face down his accusers.
Stephens, moreover, says that the Swedish attempts to extradite Assange have no legal force. So far he has not been charged, Stephens says – an essential precondition for a valid European arrest warrant.
Under the EAW scheme, which allows for fast-tracked extradition between EU member states, a warrant must indicate a formal charge in order to be validated, and must be served on the person accused.
"Julian Assange has never been charged by Swedish prosecutors. He is formally wanted as a witness," Stephens told the Guardian today.
"All we have is an English translation of what's being reported in the media. The Swedish authorities have not met their obligations under domestic and European law to communicate the nature of the allegations against him in a language that he understands, and the evidence against him."
Assange's legal team are challenging the warrant in Sweden's supreme court. They are optimistic: a previous appeal was partially successful in limiting the grounds on which the warrant was issued.
Today a spokesman for Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency, which is responsible for validating extradition requests, would not confirm or deny receipt of a European arrest warrant for Assange's extradition.
Assange has previously suggested he might find sanctuary in Switzerland. More promising perhaps is Ecuador, whose leftist government unexpectedly offered him asylum on Monday.
"We are ready to give him residence in Ecuador, with no problems and no conditions," Ecuador's foreign minister, Kintto Lucas, said.
At the very least, Ecuador could offer Assange a new passport. He might need one. Yesterday Australia's attorney general, Robert McClelland, said Australian police were also investigating whether any Australian laws had been broken by the latest WikiLeaks release.
In reality, Assange's predicament may not be as hopeless as it seems. The US would be hard pressed to make charges against him stick, experts suggest.
"There have been so few cases under the Espionage Act, you can put them on one hand," said David Banisar, senior legal counsel for the campaigning group Article 19 and an expert on free speech in the US. "There is the practical problem that most of the information published by WikiLeaks wasn't secret. Then there is the debate about whether the documents were properly classified – there are detailed rules in the US about what can and cannot be classified."
10 comments:
I think this is something that should have happened long time ago, and now the person who had the guts to spill the governments secrets is being hunted down! Our government system for one seems to have many gray areas and a lot of underhand dealing going on that we don't know about. So this website provides the people to see into the government without restraints which is something the government most fears. I personally don't want to know about the government completely due to the fact that it would make me more paranoid however I strongly agree that it should be open to the public. The people need to see what is really going on, even if the government doesn't like it.
It seems like Assange may make through this unharmed because of major government loopholes in all the different countries involved. There are a couple problems that the U.S may have trying to arrest Assange. Under the Espionage Act of 1917, it is illegal to "convey information with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the armed forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies." And, you can't post confidential information without interfering with the U.S armed forces, unless you send it out for the whole public to see and use, which is what Assange essentially did. The Espionage Act was issued during the First Red Scare to keep Americans from sending confidential information about the U.S Also, It may be just me, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how the U.S is planning to arrest someone who's not even a citizen of the United States and who's in a completely different country.
Wow. My only question is how can the US government punish a person that is not an american citizen? How is it an espionage leak if the person that is convicted of the crime is the one who posts the information?
wow this is an interesting case, and I feel a little ambivalent about the whole thing. A lot of my feelings on this issue have to do with the nature of the information leaked, as in I do not know what it was. Also I do not know how this information was gathered and depending on whether he hacked it or came by it some legal way would really help me decide whether or not legal charges are actually reasonable. I would have to look into this issue more to decide for myself whether or not Julian Assange deserves to face legal action.
I think Assange's case is so situational in every aspect that none of the charges will stick. There are too many tricky areas for him, like the matter of his citizenship, and the actual importance of the documents that were leaked. The Espionage Act is taken a little too seriously, in my opinion, and the fact that there have been basically less than five cases seriously considered in court, I'd say this will all blow over for Assange very soon.
Although Assange did put our national security in jeopardy, we, that is the U.S. , and all other nations must obey the proper laws in order to arrest and try him. If he has sanctuary in Ecuador then there's nothing more that we can do. So, that being said, we need to get on it and get Britain to hand him over.
This whole situation is so crazy. First of all, I don't know how these people are able to hack and find these files, and then I don't get how they can get the audacity to post it on the internet despite the consequences. I'm not exactly sure how secret these files Assange is posting, but I think there should be some sort of punishment for hacking into government files and showing them to the public.
I think this is ridiculous. Wikileads is only one of many sites that can give you this kind of information, and honestly, what is private anymore? I can easily google where i was born, what school I'm in, even family history and more and I'm only 17.
The people do have a right to know what is going on in their own government and between their government and another but there is such thing as TMI. It can just send people into a panic. But unless it can be proven that he had ill intentions specifically to the U.S. or the world there isn't much to do.
ok if this guy is trying to hide then he needs to quit putting himself in the public eye. further more, he should just come out and someone press charges. everyone obviously knows hes guilty and if he really thinks hes not then he needs to come out and fight. hes not doing a good job of clearing his name.
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