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WikiLeaks Chief Is Put on Interpol List
By JOHN F. BURNS and ALAN COWELL
LONDON — Interpol has placed Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks whistle-blowing organization, on a so-called red notice wanted list to seek his arrest to answer allegations of sexual misbehavior by a Swedish prosecutor, according to the global police organization’s Web site on Wednesday.
The notice said Mr. Assange, 39, was wanted for “sex crimes” on an arrest warrant brought by the international public prosecution office in Gothenburg, Sweden. Interpol is based in Lyon, France. Mr. Assange’s whereabouts were not immediately known.
The development came as several newspapers, including The New York Times, published confidential documents from a mass of some 250,000 diplomatic cables from the State Department in Washington including communications concerning American policy in Iran, Pakistan, Korea and many other places.
The Swedish prosecutor’s office said almost two weeks ago that a court in Stockholm had approved its request for the arrest of Mr. Assange to face questioning on charges that Mr. Assange has strongly denied.
Marianne Ny, director of the Stockholm prosecutor’s office, said in a statement at the time that she had moved to have Mr. Assange extradited to Sweden on suspicion of “rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion.” The accusations were first made against Mr. Assange after he traveled to Sweden in mid-August and had brief relationships with two Swedish women that he has described as consensual. Attempts to reach Ms. Ny on Wednesday to clarify what action was being taken to secure Mr. Assange’s arrest and return to Sweden were unsuccessful.
Lawyers acting for Mr. Assange appealed against the arrest warrant at Sweden’s highest court on Tuesday, The Associated Press said in a report that also quoted President Rafael Correa of Ecuador as dismissing an offer of residence in his country made to Mr. Assange by a lower official.
According to Interpol’s Web site, a red notice “is not an international arrest warrant” and it is up to national jurisdictions to decide how to act on them.
“Interpol’s role is to assist the national police forces in identifying or locating those persons with a view to their arrest and extradition,” the Web site said. “These red notices allow the warrant to be circulated worldwide with the request that the wanted person be arrested with a view to extradition.”
A spokesman for Scotland Yard said the force had received “no intelligence” that Mr. Assange was in London, and said that British police, following what he described as normal practice in the case of Interpol red notices, were not involved in an active effort to arrest him.
Though officers are not dedicated to finding the Australian, the spokesman said “if that intelligence comes in, or we have reason to believe that a person who has a red notice out on them is in a certain location we will find them and extradite them as per the international rules.”
Unconfirmed reports on Wednesday, attributed to WikiLeaks associates, said the Australian was staying out of sight somewhere outside London. The cell-phones of two close associates of Mr. Assange seemed to be switched off with recorded messages saying their owners were outside Britain.
A Web report by the British Guardian newspaper, which has developed close ties with the Australian during the months that the Guardian, The New York Times and other publications have been preparing stories based on the WikiLeaks documents, said on Tuesday that Mr. Assange was “in a secret location somewhere outside London with fellow hackers and WikiLeaks enthusiasts.”
An American journalist based in New York told The New York Times he had had contacts with aides to Mr. Assange in recent days over a possible interview, and had been told to prepare for a meeting with him in Britain sometime in January.
Other reports suggested that he might have fled Britain ahead of the Interpol notice to another country where he was less likely to be arrested, but these may have originated with Mr. Assange’s own statements in recent weeks suggesting that he might have to flee to Moscow or Havana -- statements that left open the possibility that he was dramatizing the difficulties he has encountered in finding a safe refuge, rather than outlining an actual plan.
Nor was it clear exactly how Mr. Assange’s situation had been changed by the Interpol notice.
With the threat of detention hanging over him, any public appearance by Mr. Assange, or any other activity that disclosed his whereabouts, including interviews that reveal where he is staying, could result in his arrest. If he is in Britain, thus, and wants to avoid deportation to Sweden, he would need to stay out of sight — something that will hold little novelty for him.
After founding WikiLeaks in 2006, he adopted an elusive lifestyle, spending long periods in hiding, shuttling from one country to another, and mixing brief public appearances with a more common pattern of “appearing” remotely for interviews and panel discussions by video link over the Internet. At time, he has also altered his appearance, dyeing his prematurely white hair blonde, then black, and cutting it short.
Mr. Assange arrived in Britain from Sweden in the fall, telling reporters he was concerned about possible action against him by American or British security agencies in retaliation for WikiLeaks’ earlier decision to post hundreds of thousands of secret American military documents on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in separate releases in July and October.
He has described the Swedish prosecutor’s allegations against him as “dirty tricks.”
According to accounts his accusers gave to the police and friends, they both had consensual sexual encounters with Mr. Assange that became nonconsensual. One woman said that Mr. Assange had ignored her appeals to stop after a condom broke.
The other woman said that she and Mr. Assange had begun a sexual encounter using a condom, but that Mr. Assange did not comply with her appeals to stop when it was no longer in use. Mr. Assange has questioned the veracity of those accounts.
In recent days, despite the Swedish quest for his detention, he has communicated his views from undisclosed locations.
On Monday he addressed reporters by video link and in an interview on Tuesday with Time magazine, Mr. Assange spoke for 36 minutes by Skype, using the occasion to call for Mrs. Clinton’s resignation and to assert that the State Department had rejected a request from WikiLeaks to review some of the material being published.
Mr. Assange said that all the released documents were redacted “carefully.”
“They are all reviewed and they’re all redacted either by us or by the newspapers concerned,” he said, according to Time. He added that “we have formally asked the State Department for assistance with that. That request was formally rejected.”
Asked about his moral justification for publishing the leaks, Mr. Assange denied that his actions constituted civil disobedience. “This organization practices civil obedience, that is, we are an organization that tries to make the world more civil and act against abusive organizations that are pushing it in the opposite direction.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/wo...e.html?_r=1&hp
Born Again Christian Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said, 'Whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason, and I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty'.
By JOHN F. BURNS and ALAN COWELL
LONDON — Interpol has placed Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks whistle-blowing organization, on a so-called red notice wanted list to seek his arrest to answer allegations of sexual misbehavior by a Swedish prosecutor, according to the global police organization’s Web site on Wednesday.
The notice said Mr. Assange, 39, was wanted for “sex crimes” on an arrest warrant brought by the international public prosecution office in Gothenburg, Sweden. Interpol is based in Lyon, France. Mr. Assange’s whereabouts were not immediately known.
The development came as several newspapers, including The New York Times, published confidential documents from a mass of some 250,000 diplomatic cables from the State Department in Washington including communications concerning American policy in Iran, Pakistan, Korea and many other places.
The Swedish prosecutor’s office said almost two weeks ago that a court in Stockholm had approved its request for the arrest of Mr. Assange to face questioning on charges that Mr. Assange has strongly denied.
Marianne Ny, director of the Stockholm prosecutor’s office, said in a statement at the time that she had moved to have Mr. Assange extradited to Sweden on suspicion of “rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion.” The accusations were first made against Mr. Assange after he traveled to Sweden in mid-August and had brief relationships with two Swedish women that he has described as consensual. Attempts to reach Ms. Ny on Wednesday to clarify what action was being taken to secure Mr. Assange’s arrest and return to Sweden were unsuccessful.
Lawyers acting for Mr. Assange appealed against the arrest warrant at Sweden’s highest court on Tuesday, The Associated Press said in a report that also quoted President Rafael Correa of Ecuador as dismissing an offer of residence in his country made to Mr. Assange by a lower official.
According to Interpol’s Web site, a red notice “is not an international arrest warrant” and it is up to national jurisdictions to decide how to act on them.
“Interpol’s role is to assist the national police forces in identifying or locating those persons with a view to their arrest and extradition,” the Web site said. “These red notices allow the warrant to be circulated worldwide with the request that the wanted person be arrested with a view to extradition.”
A spokesman for Scotland Yard said the force had received “no intelligence” that Mr. Assange was in London, and said that British police, following what he described as normal practice in the case of Interpol red notices, were not involved in an active effort to arrest him.
Though officers are not dedicated to finding the Australian, the spokesman said “if that intelligence comes in, or we have reason to believe that a person who has a red notice out on them is in a certain location we will find them and extradite them as per the international rules.”
Unconfirmed reports on Wednesday, attributed to WikiLeaks associates, said the Australian was staying out of sight somewhere outside London. The cell-phones of two close associates of Mr. Assange seemed to be switched off with recorded messages saying their owners were outside Britain.
A Web report by the British Guardian newspaper, which has developed close ties with the Australian during the months that the Guardian, The New York Times and other publications have been preparing stories based on the WikiLeaks documents, said on Tuesday that Mr. Assange was “in a secret location somewhere outside London with fellow hackers and WikiLeaks enthusiasts.”
An American journalist based in New York told The New York Times he had had contacts with aides to Mr. Assange in recent days over a possible interview, and had been told to prepare for a meeting with him in Britain sometime in January.
Other reports suggested that he might have fled Britain ahead of the Interpol notice to another country where he was less likely to be arrested, but these may have originated with Mr. Assange’s own statements in recent weeks suggesting that he might have to flee to Moscow or Havana -- statements that left open the possibility that he was dramatizing the difficulties he has encountered in finding a safe refuge, rather than outlining an actual plan.
Nor was it clear exactly how Mr. Assange’s situation had been changed by the Interpol notice.
With the threat of detention hanging over him, any public appearance by Mr. Assange, or any other activity that disclosed his whereabouts, including interviews that reveal where he is staying, could result in his arrest. If he is in Britain, thus, and wants to avoid deportation to Sweden, he would need to stay out of sight — something that will hold little novelty for him.
After founding WikiLeaks in 2006, he adopted an elusive lifestyle, spending long periods in hiding, shuttling from one country to another, and mixing brief public appearances with a more common pattern of “appearing” remotely for interviews and panel discussions by video link over the Internet. At time, he has also altered his appearance, dyeing his prematurely white hair blonde, then black, and cutting it short.
Mr. Assange arrived in Britain from Sweden in the fall, telling reporters he was concerned about possible action against him by American or British security agencies in retaliation for WikiLeaks’ earlier decision to post hundreds of thousands of secret American military documents on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in separate releases in July and October.
He has described the Swedish prosecutor’s allegations against him as “dirty tricks.”
According to accounts his accusers gave to the police and friends, they both had consensual sexual encounters with Mr. Assange that became nonconsensual. One woman said that Mr. Assange had ignored her appeals to stop after a condom broke.
The other woman said that she and Mr. Assange had begun a sexual encounter using a condom, but that Mr. Assange did not comply with her appeals to stop when it was no longer in use. Mr. Assange has questioned the veracity of those accounts.
In recent days, despite the Swedish quest for his detention, he has communicated his views from undisclosed locations.
On Monday he addressed reporters by video link and in an interview on Tuesday with Time magazine, Mr. Assange spoke for 36 minutes by Skype, using the occasion to call for Mrs. Clinton’s resignation and to assert that the State Department had rejected a request from WikiLeaks to review some of the material being published.
Mr. Assange said that all the released documents were redacted “carefully.”
“They are all reviewed and they’re all redacted either by us or by the newspapers concerned,” he said, according to Time. He added that “we have formally asked the State Department for assistance with that. That request was formally rejected.”
Asked about his moral justification for publishing the leaks, Mr. Assange denied that his actions constituted civil disobedience. “This organization practices civil obedience, that is, we are an organization that tries to make the world more civil and act against abusive organizations that are pushing it in the opposite direction.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/wo...e.html?_r=1&hp
Born Again Christian Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said, 'Whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason, and I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty'.
What are those sex charges, anyway?
Assuming they're the same Swedish sex charges, to hear the Sydney Herald's Asher Moses tell it, they're complaints from two women annoyed that they let Assange seduce them.
The two women who filed the original charges had sex with Assange on successive nights. Both seemed pissed that he charmed them into bed and then never called them again. Both were mortified to learn, after the fact, that he had had sex with them on back-to-back evenings. One was annoyed that, after seducing her in a movie theater, he spent the 45 minutes in the cab riding from a movie to her apartment "tweeting and texting and reading stories about himself." Both said he preferred not to wear a condom. One said he seemed to have an aversion to the word "no." And so on...
At least as the Sydney Herald's Asher Moses tells it, there's not much in the stories about forced sex or "molestation" or politically-driven hit jobs. Mostly it's about two Julian Assange fans annoyed that the rock star Wikileaks founder charmed their pants off and then bolted.
The rape charges have since been dropped. The "molestation" charge is outstanding.
http://www.businessinsider.com/remin...#ixzz16sCrObra
Assuming they're the same Swedish sex charges, to hear the Sydney Herald's Asher Moses tell it, they're complaints from two women annoyed that they let Assange seduce them.
The two women who filed the original charges had sex with Assange on successive nights. Both seemed pissed that he charmed them into bed and then never called them again. Both were mortified to learn, after the fact, that he had had sex with them on back-to-back evenings. One was annoyed that, after seducing her in a movie theater, he spent the 45 minutes in the cab riding from a movie to her apartment "tweeting and texting and reading stories about himself." Both said he preferred not to wear a condom. One said he seemed to have an aversion to the word "no." And so on...
At least as the Sydney Herald's Asher Moses tells it, there's not much in the stories about forced sex or "molestation" or politically-driven hit jobs. Mostly it's about two Julian Assange fans annoyed that the rock star Wikileaks founder charmed their pants off and then bolted.
The rape charges have since been dropped. The "molestation" charge is outstanding.
http://www.businessinsider.com/remin...#ixzz16sCrObra
Academics like Flanagan seem to be only "manning up" following the bank exposure promise....