Assange arrested in UK

Photo: Reuters

WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange was arrested in London yesterday after surrendering to a Swedish arrest warrant, the latest blow to an organisation that faces legal, financial and technological challenges after releasing hundreds of secret US diplomatic cables.
Assange, 39, was detained after attending a London police station by appointment at 0930 GMT. Later he was remanded in custody until December 14 by a London court after he said he would fight extradition to Sweden where he faces rape allegations.
Appearing before a judge at Westminster Magistrates Court following his arrest, Assange was refused bail despite an offer by personalities including film director Ken Loach and socialite Jemima Khan to put up bail for him.
"Officers from the Metropolitan Police Service's Extradition Unit have this morning [yesterday] arrested Julian Assange on behalf of the Swedish authorities on suspicion of rape," the statement said.
"He is accused by the Swedish authorities of one count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of rape, all alleged to have been committed in August 2010."
Assange denies the allegations, which his British attorney Mark Stephens says stem from a "dispute over consensual but unprotected sex." Assange and Stephens have suggested that the prosecution is being manipulated for political reasons.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who was visiting Afghanistan yesterday, said when told about the arrest that it "sounds like good news."
The net has tightened around the Australian former computer hacker since his whistleblower website began releasing thousands of secret US diplomatic cables last week, infuriating Washington and other countries.
Since beginning to release the cables, WikiLeaks has seen its bank accounts cancelled, its web sites attacked and the US government launch a criminal investigation, saying the group has jeopardised national security and diplomatic efforts around the world.
It has also seen supporters come to its aid by setting up over 500 mirror sites around the world.
In a statement on Twitter, WikiLeaks said: "Today's actions against our editor-in-chief Julian Assange won't affect our operations: we will release more cables tonight as normal."
A spokesman for the whistleblower website called Assange's arrest an attack on media freedom and said it won't prevent the organisation from releasing more secret documents.
"This will not change our operation," said Kristinn Hrafnsson told The Associated Press.
Assange, in a newspaper opinion piece published after his arrest, said the whistle-blowing website was "fearlessly" pursuing facts in the public interest.
Assange likened his campaign to the World War I reporting of Keith Murdoch, the father of media baron Rupert Murdoch, which excoriated British generals' management of the Gallipoli campaign in which thousands of Australians died.
"Nearly a century later, WikiLeaks is also fearlessly publishing facts that need to be made public," the WikiLeaks editor wrote.
Assange's lawyers were not immediately available for comment, but they have said he will fight extradition to Sweden, saying they fear he could then be passed on to the United States from the Scandinavian country.
One of his London-based lawyers, Jennifer Robinson, said he was "isolated and persecuted" and that death threats had been made on blogs against Assange's son.
"I think he will get a fair hearing here in Britain but I think our, his, prospects if he were ever to be returned to the US, which is a real threat, of a fair trial, is, in my view, nigh on impossible," she told the Australian Broadcasting Corp ahead of his arrest.
A court in Stockholm issued an arrest warrant for Assange on November 18.
Assange could now be embroiled in the extradition process for weeks, or even months.
A spokesman for the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) told AFP ahead of Assange's arrest that when the subject of a European arrest warrant appears in court they are given the option to consent to their extradition.
WikiLeaks has already been expelled from the United States where politicians have called for Assange to be treated as a terrorist.