Assange awaits extradition verdict

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is due to appear in a British court on Monday to fight extradition to Sweden. The two-day hearing at a high security London court will examine a Swedish arrest warrant for the 39-year-old Australian on sexual assault charges.

Reuters

Rallies are being held in London on Monday in support of Assange, who says the claims are politically motivated. He is wanted for questioning, but has not been formally charged in Sweden.

 
The judge is expected to defer his decision in the case at Belmarsh Magistrates' Court in south London. If the ruling goes against him, Assange will be able to appeal the decision in England's supreme court.

His lawyers argue that if he is extradited to Sweden, he risks extradition or illegal rendition to the United States where they say he could face the death penalty.

Assange was released on bail a week after his arrest on 7 December and has since been staying at a friend's house. He is under a curfew, wears an electronic ankle tag and has to report to police daily.

Swedish police reports with details of the allegations leaked onto the Internet last week.

The alleged rape victim’s statement alleges that Assange forced himself on her, without wearing a condom, while she was asleep. She said she allowed the intercourse to continue when she woke up.

The woman said she had had consensual sex with Assange earlier in the evening and had then fallen asleep with him.

Assange's other alleged victim accused him of having deliberately broken the condom, but a forensic examination of the condom found no evidence to support this claim.

Assange faces a criminal probe in the United States over the leaking of 250,000 US diplomatic cables.

WikiLeaks recently threatened to sue Britain’s Guardian newspaper over its serialisation of WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy, a book by journalists David Leigh and Luke Harding.

Extracts said Assange disguised himself as an old woman in order to evade US spies who he believed were following him. They also describe how Assange fell out with the paper.