Emma Alberici reported this story on

Lawyers fear Julian Assange could face death penalty

TAPESCRIPT 16

Wednesday, January 12, 2011 08:19:00

TONY EASTLEY: Lawyers for Julian Assange say they fear that their client will be given the death penalty if he is sent to the United States where prosecutors are building a case against him.

Mr Assange appeared before Belmarsh Magistrates' Court in London overnight fighting against attempts to have him extradited to Sweden where he's facing sexual assault charges.

Here's Europe correspondent Emma Alberici.

(sound of cameras clicking)

EMMA ALBERICI: The world's media were out in force to greet Julian Assange as he arrived at the high security Belmarsh Magistrates' Court.

The WikiLeaks founder was before the judge for just ten minutes. His defence team was granted permission to hand their 35 pages of legal argument to the media.

District Judge Nicholas Evans also told Mr Assange that he could stay in London during his extradition hearing next month, instead of having to commute three hours to Norfolk each night, where he's under house arrest as a condition of his bail.

JULIAN ASSANGE: We are happy about today's outcome...

EMMA ALBERICI: Julian Assange has raised the ire of American authorities after publishing thousands of classified US government cables through his WikiLeaks website.

US prosecutors are now thought to be building a case against him after demanding details about the Twitter accounts of Mr Assange, his supporters and Private Bradley Manning, the army intelligence analyst in custody who's suspected of supplying WikiLeaks with the secret documents.

JULIAN ASSANGE: Our work with WikiLeaks continues unabated and we are stepping up our publishing for matters related to Cablegate.

EMMA ALBERICI: Swedish authorities are attempting to have the 39-year-old whistleblower extradited on sexual assault charges.

Included in the legal arguments against extradition, are revelations that one of the women who claims she was raped by Mr Assange sent a text message stating that she was half asleep when she was forced to have sex with him.

The other woman in the case is said to have written a blog explaining how to take legal revenge against an ex lover.

Primarily the defence documents argue that the case is a pretext for a criminal prosecution in the United States, which has the prospect of landing Julian Assange in an electric chair.

His lawyer Mark Stevens says Sweden has a history of sending people to foreign jurisdictions, where they then face torture.

MARK STEVENS: America still is in the appalling state of affairs of having the death penalty and we haven't got an undertaking from Sweden that they won't extradite him to the United States of America and so in those circumstances it becomes very unfair to ask him to go to Sweden for questioning.

EMMA ALBERICI: If, as Mr Assange asserts, there's no case to answer here, why doesn't he just go and get questioned in Sweden?

MARK STEVENS: The Swedish authorities haven't yet given any firm commitment that they won't render him or permit him to be rendered either to Guantanamo Bay or some other place of America's choosing, which puts him beyond the realms of proper justice.

EMMA ALBERICI: Julian Assange recently signed a $1.5 million publishing deal to write his memoirs.

This is Emma Alberici in London for AM.

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