Counsel for WikiLeaks founder argues a fair trial is not possible after politician's 'outburst', writes MARK HENNESSYLondon Editor
SWEDISH PRIME minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has guaranteed that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can never get a fair trial in Stockholm, a British judge was told yesterday.
Julian Assange has much in common with Fr Paddy Ryan, the Irish priest the British authorities unsuccessfully tried to extradite from Belgium and Ireland in 1988 after the IRA killed three British soldiers in the Netherlands, barrister Geoffrey Robertson told the Belmarsh court yesterday.
Fr Ryan was arrested in Belgium two months after the killings, but the Belgians sent him to Ireland rather than to London. The extradition request to Ireland fell after then prime minister Margaret Thatcher made prejudicial remarks in the House of Commons.
Mr Reinfeldt has this week followed Mrs Thatcher’s example, argued Robertson, in the Swedish parliament and later in the media by claiming that Assange is trying to limit Swedish women’s rights to have sexual abuse cases heard in court.
Mr Reinfeldt had subjected Mr Assange to “devastating vilification” and prejudiced his chances of a fair trial by accusing him of “claiming women’s rights are worthless”, Mr Robertson said on the third day of the extradition hearing.
“The real evil of this outburst is that it has whipped up a toxic atmosphere. The Swedish people will believe, coming from their prime minister, that these falsehoods are true. We see this as an intolerable development,” he told district judge Howard Riddle.
Swedish prosecutors want the 39-year-old Australian sent to Sweden for questioning and prosecution over allegations that he sexually assaulted two women, raping one of them by having unprotected sex with her while she was asleep.
Seeking a separate hearing on the matter in March, Mr Assange’s barrister went on: “When the head of state blackguards a defendant we are entitled to show why he cannot receive a fair trial with this sort of thing going on.”
Clare Montgomery, representing the crown prosecution service and Sweden in the hearing, suggested Mr Assange and his legal team only had themselves to blame because they had first questioned the impartiality of the Swedish legal system.
“You may think that those who try to fan the flames of a media fire storm cannot be surprised when they get burnt,” the judge was told by Ms Montgomery, who has clashed repeatedly with Mr Robertson during the extradition hearing.
Refusing Mr Robertson’s call, Mr Justice Riddle said a case attracting attention on the scale of the one before him would always be heard in an atmosphere where interventions from the outside occurred.
After the day’s proceedings, Mr Assange, who has stayed at a Norfolk mansion since his release in December from Wandsworth Jail, said: “In this case we have not been able to present my side of the story. I have never been able to present my side of the story.”
Unperturbed by Ms Montgomery’s chiding, the WikiLeaks founder sought to cast his own aspersions by pointing out that she had represented former Chilean president Augusto Pinochet in London when he faced extradition.
Mr Assange’s solicitor, Mark Stephens, said Mr Reinfeldt’s charges were extraordinary and exceptional.
“In this country the matter would have been dropped as a result. In any decent country the rule of law is separated from the political process. In Sweden it appears not to be.”
The judge’s ruling will come on February 24th, but it is likely to be just a staging-post in a long battle ahead since both sides have already made it clear that they will go to a higher court if they do not agree with him.