WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrested in UK

SYDNEY/LONDON (Agencies)

Assange arrested on a Swedish warrant in the UK

Police say WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has surrendered to British police as part of a
Swedish sex-crimes investigation, the latest blow to the secret-spilling website that faces legal, financial and security challenges. Assange, 39, was arrested at 9:30 a.m. (930 GMT) Tuesday and was due to appear at Westminster Magistrate’s Court later in the day. Assange has been hiding out at an undisclosed location in Britain since WikiLeaks began publishing hundreds of U.S. diplomatic cables on the Internet last week. The organization’s room for maneuver is narrowing by the day. It has been battered by web attacks, cut off by Internet service providers and is the subject of a criminal investigation in the United States, where officials say the release jeopardized national security and diplomatic efforts around the world.

On Tuesday, Assange’s lawyer said the British police received a request to arrest Assange to face charges in Stockholm.

Assange’s WikiLeaks has published hundreds of confidential U.S. diplomatic cables sending panic waves through global capitals.

	“(The Swedish prosecutor) said publicly on television last night that all she wants is his side of the story. Now we’ve offered that on numerous occasions. There is no need for him to return to Sweden to do that
Assange\\\’s London-based lawyer Jennifer Robinson

Assange’s London-based lawyer Jennifer Robinson said the Australian whistleblower would likely resist being returned to Sweden for fear he could be turned over to the United States where outrage is growing over his revelations.

“(The Swedish prosecutor) said publicly on television last night that all she wants is his side of the story. Now we’ve offered that on numerous occasions. There is no need for him to return to Sweden to do that,” she said.

“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 U.S., which is a real threat, of a fair trial, is, in my view, nigh on impossible,” she told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

But Robinson refused to discuss further details of Assange’s looming meeting with British police, saying only that it was “bizarre” that his legal team had not yet seen a copy of the arrest warrant and had seen no evidence.

	We take these threats of assassination incredibly seriously and they are obviously illegal and those individuals who are citing violence ought to be considered for prosecution
Robinson

“Isolated and persecuted”

Declining to confirm whether Assange was already in Britain as widely reported by media, the lawyer said her client was being “isolated and persecuted” and that death threats had been made on blogs against his son.

“This is obviously part of a broader risk of a threat to Mr Assange himself,” she said in the ABC interview from London.

“We take these threats of assassination incredibly seriously and they are obviously illegal and those individuals who are citing violence ought to be considered for prosecution,” Robinson said.

Robinson said both she and fellow British-based Assange lawyer Mark Stephens had been followed and had their phone calls interfered with since taking on the case, but declined to say who she thought was surveilling them.

Robinson said any arrest of Assange would not prevent the publication of more of the 250,000 leaked documents that WikiLeaks is holding, as media groups have agreed an “orderly” publishing schedule for the coming months.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard slammed the publication of leaked confidential diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks as “grossly irresponsible,” saying the information was gathered through an “illegal act.”

Pressed on what Australian laws had been broken by WikiLeaks or Assange, Gillard said federal police were investigating and would advise her “about potential criminal conduct of the individual involved”.

“The foundation stone of WikiLeaks was an illegal act,” Gillard told reporters in Canberra.

“Let’s not try to put any glosses on this, information would not be on WikiLeaks had there not been an illegal act undertaken.”

	I will underscore that this theft of U.S. government information and its publication without regard for the consequences is deeply distressing. The illegal publication of classified information poses real concerns and even potential damage to our friends and partners” worldwide
U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton

Key infrastructure site

In one of its most explosive leaks of U.S. secrets so far, WikiLeaks on Monday divulged a list of key infrastructure sites around the world that, if attacked by terrorists, could critically harm U.S. security.

The website released a State Department cable from February 2009 asking U.S. missions to update a list of infrastructure and key resources whose loss “could critically impact” the country’s public health, economic life and national security.

The list detailed undersea cables, key communications, ports, mineral resources and firms of strategic importance in countries ranging from Britain to New Zealand, via Africa, the Middle East and China.

Also listed were European manufacturers of vaccines for smallpox and rabies, an Italian maker of treatment for snake-bite venom, and a German company making treatment for plutonium poisoning.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday she regretted the latest release.

“I will underscore that this theft of U.S. government information and its publication without regard for the consequences is deeply distressing,” Clinton told reporters.

“The illegal publication of classified information poses real concerns and even potential damage to our friends and partners” worldwide, she warned.

The release added to the political storm engulfing WikiLeaks and Assange, with the website already battling to secure avenues for financial donations, and left to hop-scotch across servers to evade a total shutdown.