Assange “may” be released

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Assange may be released

Peter Wilson, Europe correspondent

The Australian,  December 09, 2010 12:00AM

JULIAN Assange has received a glimmer of hope in his battle against sexual abuse allegations.

A British judge says the WikiLeaks founder may be released from jail next week unless Swedish prosecutors produce evidence in London to back up their allegations.

Senior district judge Howard Riddle said Swedish authorities would need to show some convincing evidence if they wanted to oppose bail for the 39-year-old Australian when he appears in court next Tuesday to oppose extradition to Sweden.

Mr Assange was yesterday refused bail and sent to Wandsworth prison when he appeared before Judge Riddle to answer a Swedish extradition application.

The internet activist’s lawyers say if he stays in jail, it will be much harder for them to organise his defence against the Swedish sex charges and to stave off what they believe is a US government plan to charge him with espionage-related crimes over the publication of thousands of secret American cables.

Mary Ann Wright is a former United States Army colonel and retired official of the U.S. State Department, known for her outspoken opposition to the Iraq War. She is most noted for having been one of three State Department officials to publicly resign in direct protest of the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. (wikipedia)

“We were told as diplomats, ‘Don’t ever put anything in a cable you wouldn’t want on the front page of a newspaper.’ It shows that they’re a lot of arrogant people, that the system itself wasn’t checking itself,” says Wright of the latest documents released from WikiLeaks.  

Meanwhile, several of the diplomatic cables released depict possibly illegal actions by the U.S. government, and Wright notes that the chances of anyone being held accountable are slim.

Ann Wright joined Laura Flanders of GritTV to discuss the latest releases from WikiLeaks, what they tell us about the U.S. Government and Defense and State departments, and what should happen, but probably won’t, to the people implicated therein.

I’ve also made a bumpersticker on Cafe Press, and I’ll be donating any proceeds from it to WikiLeaks.

Buy it here

Full disclosure:

Cafe Press gets US$3.49 on single bumperstickers and adds $3.00 markup to me = US$6.49 retail price

They get US$26.99 on 10 packs and add $10.00 markup to me = US$36.99 retail price

They get US$96.99 on 50 packs and add $20.00 markup to me = US$116.99 retail price

Any money I make from these I’ll be donating 100% to WikiLeaks.

You can buy them if you want to, but I’d much rather that you give your money directly to Wikileaks so more money ends up in Assange’s defense fund.