LONDON – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appealed to Britain’s Supreme Court yesterday not to extradite him to Sweden over accusations of sex crimes.
Australian-born Assange (40) became a worldwide celebrity and infuriated the US government in 2010 when WikiLeaks released secret video footage and thousands of US diplomatic cables about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Since then, WikiLeaks has faded from the news headlines, starved of cash by major credit card companies that are refusing to process online donations to it, and bogged down by Assange’s protracted legal troubles.
He was detained in December 2010 on a European arrest warrant from a Swedish prosecutor after two former WikiLeaks volunteers accused him of sexual assault. – (Reuters)