Bail For Julian Assange Upheld By British High Court

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Following yesterdays report from the UK Guardian that “The decision to have Julian Assange sent to a London jail and kept there was taken by the British authorities and not by prosecutors in Sweden, as previously thought.” and that Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service would go to the high court today to seek the reversal of the City of Westminster magistrates court decision to free the WikiLeaks founder on bail…

The Guardian reports this morning that:


Britain’s high court today decided to grant bail to Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who is wanted in Sweden for questioning over allegations of rape.

Justice Duncan Ouseley agreed with a decision by the City of Westminister earlier in the week to release Assange on strict conditions: £200,000 cash deposit, with a further £40,000 guaranteed in two sureties of £20,000 and strict conditions on his movement.



Bail conditions set by Riddle stipulate that Assange must stay at a country house in Suffolk owned by Vaughan Smith, the founder of the Frontline club in west London, report to police daily and wear an electronic tag.

There is no mention in the Guardian’s piece this morning as to whether Assange has actually been physically released yet.

Meanwhile, as Daniel Tencer notes this morning at RawStory, the US witch hunt continues as  “The Justice Department is looking at contact between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the alleged source of the leaked State Department cables, PFC Bradley Manning, in order to build a criminal conspiracy case against Assange, a news report says.”

Prosecutors are reportedly sifting through Internet chats between Manning, an Army intel analyst who has been in US military custody since his arrest in May, and Adrian Lamo, the hacker who reported Manning to the authorities. They hope to find evidence that Assange encouraged or aided Manning while the Army private worked to obtain and deliver to WikiLeaks 250,000 State Department cables.

“If [Assange] did so, [prosecutors] believe they could charge him as a conspirator in the leak, not just as a passive recipient of the documents who then published them,” the New York Times reports.

3 comments

    • on 12/16/2010 at 17:14
      Author

    • on 12/16/2010 at 18:55

    is finally starting to realize that freedom of the press and the 1st Amendment is now under serious assault by the US government and the courts.  

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