It seemed to have snowed a little more on Friday night and the temperature has dropped to 2 degrees below zero on Saturday morning. That is hardly a good reason for the world media not to stake out Ellingham Hall in Norfolk, some 104 miles from London.
Ellingham Hall has been the new home for WikiLeaks’ controversial founder & Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange, who on Thursday secured a £240,000 bail from a British high court after a week-long battle to clear himself of sexual assault charges. He was brought in for questioning after an arrest warrant was issued by the Swedish government.
Assange’s supporters, many of whom are faceless individuals in cyberspace, claim these are charges trumped up by governments embarrassed by his continuing leak of US diplomatic cables to the world’s media.
There is only one road that Assange can take for his daily visit to the local police station as part of his bail terms. He must sign in between 2 and 5 pm every day as long he is in the UK. In the second week of January, Assange will fight a fresh extradition case against Sweden that will determine his continued stay in the UK or freedom to continue a nomadic life that has become almost routine for the 39-year-old Australian.
The presence of a financial reporter from India surprises the Western media covering Assange’s adventures. Apparently, it is common to see reporters and photographers from Norway, Spain, Greece and as far away as Australia chasing this news.
“Is Julian big news in India?” asks Brian Farmer, a news reporter for Press Association, who travelled from Cambridge to cover developments here. He gives an unsure, but polite nod when told there are bigger phone tapping cases bothering Indian readers and editors. Surprisingly, there is stronger interest from photographers, who clearly outnumber reporters, in the man who gave the world media plenty of words.
With a larger number on their side, the lensmen have a field day taking friendly pot-shots at reporters, “caption writers” being the most popular dig doing the rounds this morning. Despite the friendly banter there is no dearth of camaraderie as we huddle into cars discussing politics and guessing what Assange might be up to at that very moment.
More From This Section
Jonas Sverrisson Rasch, a reporter for Norway’s second largest tabloid, Dagbladet, says he is hoping to get a one-on-one with Assange. A van with a three-member crew from CBS News is also here. Lynne Edwards, a Surrey-based producer for the US network with two of her colleagues, says there is very strong interest in the US.
Of course there is. No other government has been put in a tighter spot by Assange and his team. American politicians are poring over law books to find something that might help them bring Assange to justice on American soil.
Around 3 pm, Assange and one of his hosts from Ellingham Hall, manages to wriggle past the media posse for his daily police station visit. Photographers continue their chase all the way to the station and some even manage a few good shots of him walking in. Around 3.40 pm, on his way home, Assange stops to chat with the media. He smiles at some of the familiar faces.
For man who created panic in diplomatic circles, his voice is unnaturally low. “I am going back in for my lunch,” is the first thing he says before going into the details of a new chapter in his life in the UK. He admits that he fears for his own and his colleagues’ lives and says the WikiLeaks mother website (with the dot org extension) will be up and running soon. Some 2,000 other sites are mirroring WikiLeaks now. He says he is already in talks with some publishers to tell his story in a book.
The flow of questions seems endless. He answers every one patiently. Around 15 minutes later, he is ready to move on. When asked if he would like to reach out to 1.2 billion Indians, he smiles. He takes the business card and promises to get back. Within seconds, the road to Ellingham Hall is empty.