A British high court today upheld an earlier verdict of the Westminster Magistrate Court and granted bail to WikiLeaks’ controversial founder Julian Assange. The good news for Assange, his legal team and supporters came after Assange had spent nearly two days in London’s Wandsworth prison despite the fact that a lower court had granted him bail on Tuesday.
Assange, though gained international notoriety with the release of embarrassing US diplomatic cables and video footage of a civilian attack in Afghanistan by American soldiers through his WikiLeaks website, he had to face the British justice system for an alleged sexual attack on two women in Sweden in August.
In a twist of events, prior to the court hearing today, it emerged that Assange’s bail was not challenged by the Swedish prosecutors as originally believed but by the Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service. This was clarified by the Swedish authorities to the media this morning. It came to light before the hearing that the Swedes had no view on the bail at all and it was the British authorities who were pursuing the line of challenging the original bail. Even after the bail was confirmed today, Assange’s lawyer Mark Stephens said that who appealed against the bail remained opaque.
Assange’s lawyers have also now confirmed that the bail money is in the “banking system” and Assange would be free no later than tomorrow, when the court gets a confirmation of the deposit of bail money.
In all, the £240,000-bail will comprise a deposit of £200,000 and a two sureties of £20,000 each. Several celebrities had come forward to provide the bail money, including American director Michael Moore, John Pilger, well-known Australian journalist, Ken Loach, British film director and Jemima Khan, British socialite, and activist Bianca Jagger. The judge who confirmed the bail today selected the names of people from whom the court will accept the bail money.
The bail also needed Assange to give a permanent address. Since his permanent address stated earlier was a PO Box number in Australia, one of his supporters Vaughn Smith, a former army captain who founded and runs the Frontline Club in London had offered his 600-acre country estate as a bail address and which has been accepted by the court. Assange his expected to live in this estate once he is freed from jail.
Apart from the bail money, Assange will also have to present himself at the police station near his new residence in Smith’s estate. His movements will also be closely monitored with an electronic tag on his person.
Meanwhile, the anonymous group of online supporters for WikiLeaks and Assange revealed that they are a much larger group than what they were thought to be, with the number of supporters in the excess of 9,000 now. With not one particular leader, this group meets in secure online chat rooms and discuss the modus operandi for taking down websites that have denied Assange and Wikileaks their services.
