Tuesday - December 14, 2010

In Again, Out Again

Here again, gone?

UK gives bail to Julian Assange, the Wikileaks creep.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was granted bail Tuesday after a hearing at Westminster Magistrate’s Court in London.

The 39-year-old Australian handed himself over to London police last week to answer a European arrest warrant over alleged sex crimes in Sweden.

Assange is facing accusations of rape, sexual molestation and illegal use of force in separate incidents in August in Stockholm. He could be sentenced to two years in prison if convicted. His lawyers deny the allegations and have vowed to fight any attempts at extradition.

The magistrate agreed to grant bail Tuesday after Assange’s team of attorneys reported that Vaughan Smith, a former British army officer who founded London’s Frontline Club, had offered his mansion in Suffolk to Assange.

Smith will keep Assange “if not under house arrest, at least under mansion arrest,” said defense attorney Geoffrey Robinson. At that, Assange, dressed in a white shirt and a blue jacket and sitting in a glassed-in corner of the court with three security guards, smiled wryly.

The magistrate set bail at 200,000 pounds (about $315,000) plus two sureties of 20,000 pounds each (about $31,500). Assange’s passport must remain with police, and he will be monitored by a location tag.

The first headline to emerge from Julian Assange’s bail hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court was that the judge would allow journalists to tweet from inside the courtroom.  As long as they were quiet.

The running commentary began—packed court, Bianca Jagger in the house, Assange with smart gray cropped hair, in the same suit he wore at his last hearing.

This is a hearing related to a sex abuse case, but the new media element was everywhere.  Assange’s supporters, sympathetic “hacktivists” wreaked havoc in the past week, temporarily disabling websites of PayPal, Visa and Mastercard, after those companies put the squeeze on Wikileaks’ funding.
Many of them were outside the courthouse.  There was a heavy police presence.  And an enormous media presence.

The Wikileaks founder has assembled a formidable legal team, including Geoffrey Roberston, a celebrity freedom of speech lawyer who worked with Salman Rushdie.  His Swedish lawyer thinks they can put down the sex allegations.  And that they were motivated by jealousy and disappointment.

Michael Moore offers to post bail for Julian Assange

“I support Julian, whom I see as a pioneer of free speech, transparent government and the digital revolution in journalism. His commitment to exposing the follies of government and business offers the greater society a chance to protect itself from these follies. Some aren’t just follies. Some are crimes. What do we do with someone who informs the authorities—and in this case it is the free people in a democracy who are the “authorities”—that a crime has been committed? Do we arrest HIM? Do we try to shut his mouth? Do we hound him, threaten him, track him down and hunt him as if HE is the criminal? He bravely informed the citizenry of what was being done in their name and with their tax monies. That is no crime. That is an act of patriotism. He should be thanked and honored, not abused and jailed.”

Oh brother. Not that any nation is charging this lowlife with espionage, oh no. He’s a “pioneer of free speech”, not a spy! The charges against him have nothing to do with that. And who knows, maybe they’ll bust him for that overdue library book he never returned to his college.

Why the hell can’t anybody just say this guy is a spy, and then shoot him? Where’s that Red with the umbrella and the radioactive needle when you need him? This is becoming the theater of the absurd more and more each day.

Posted by Drew458     on 12/14/2010 at 12:16 PM   
Filed Under: • News-Briefs •  
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