[Infowarrior] - Assange Arrested in London Over Rape Case

[Richard Forno]

(Would he have received an Interpol red notice for these charges were he not the center of Wikileaks situation?  I think not.  --- rick)

WikiLeaks Founder Assange Arrested in London Over Rape Case

By Erik Larson and Janina Pfalzer - Dec 7, 2010 7:27 AM ET Tue Dec 07 12:27:14 GMT 2010

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-07/assange-arrested-in-u-k-on-international-warrant-for-swedish-rape-probe.html

Julian Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks website that leaked thousands of classified U.S. military and State Department documents, was arrested by London police over rape allegations made in Sweden.

Assange, 39, was arrested “by appointment” today at 9:30 a.m. after Swedish police requested the Australian’s detention, a Metropolitan Police spokesman said today in a phone interview. He is to appear at City of Westminster Magistrate’s Court at 2 p.m. today, a court official said.

“There is very little room for maneuver within the European arrest warrant process,” said Peter Watson, a lawyer with Allen & Overy LLP in London, who isn’t involved in the case. “In the normal course, the Brits will have to produce or send Mr. Assange back to Sweden within 90 days.”

WikiLeaks, created in 2006, drew condemnation from the U.S. for posting thousands of classified State Department documents on its website. WikiLeaks.org receives confidential material and posts the information on the Internet “so readers and historians alike can see evidence of the truth,” the organization says on its website.

The arrest follows a European warrant on one count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of rape allegedly committed in August 2010, the police’s extradition unit said in an e-mailed statement.

Stockholm, Enkoeping

The alleged crimes took place in Stockholm and Enkoeping while Assange was in Sweden lecturing about publishing classified U.S. military documents related to the war in Afghanistan. Mark Stephens, Assange’s U.K. lawyer, has said his client had consensual sex with the women.

Stephens, of the firm Finers Stephens Innocent LLP in London, who regularly represents several media organizations including Bloomberg News, didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment on the arrest. He said earlier today that his client was in talks with police regarding the warrant.

If the U.S. were to charge Assange in relation to the leaks, the country could have a difficult time invoking its extradition agreement with the U.K. to win custody, Watson said.

“The European arrest warrant will trump that request, because it’s already underway,” Watson said.

The U.S. embassy in London said it wouldn’t be sending representatives to today’s hearings.

International Search

An international search for Assange began after a Swedish court on Nov. 19 approved the warrant. An appeals court upheld the warrant while reducing the case to a “less serious” rape charge. On Dec. 2, the Supreme Court in Sweden rejected Assange’s request to review the case.

A rape sentence in Sweden normally leads to between two and six years in prison. A “serious” case, which involves violence and threats, has a maximum sentence of 10 years. A “less serious” case has an upper limit of four years, Deputy Director of Public Prosecution Mikael Bjoerk said in an interview Dec. 2.

Sweden accepts extradition requests from non-EU countries if the allegations involved are also illegal in Sweden, said Mikael Baaz, an associate law professor at the University of Gothenburg.

WikiLeaks’ actions don’t appear to have gone beyond Sweden’s so-called “right to inform,” which protects public employees who leak information to the press, Baaz said today in an interview.

Competing Extradition Request

The U.S. could send the U.K. a competing extradition request, possibly forcing Britain’s Home Secretary, Theresa May, to decide which request serves a greater public interest, said Helen Malcolm, a lawyer with Three Raymond Buildings in London.

“That would be a very difficult line to run politically, that our relationship with the U.S. is more important than these women’s’ claims,” Malcolm, who isn’t involved in the case, said in an interview.

The arrest warrant was sought by prosecutor Marianne Ny, who said she had been unable to question Assange. Ny started her investigation on Sep. 1 after Stockholm-based Chief Public Prosecutor Eva Finne dropped the rape charge and reduced the molestation charges. A lawyer for the two alleged victims in the case had appealed Finne’s decision.

Ny heads the Prosecution Authority Development Center in Gothenburg, which handles appeals involving prosecutor decisions in sex-crime cases.

Assange, born in Townsville, Australia, began as a computer hacker in his native country and pleaded guilty in 1996 to 24 counts of violating the Crimes Act by accessing and inserting information into computers, including those of Nortel Networks Corp. He received a fine and three years probation.

To contact the reporter on this story: Janina Pfalzer in Stockholm at jpfalzer at bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Angela Cullen at acullen8 at bloomberg.net.