Legal Commentary

Britain, Not Sweden, Appealing Julian Assange Bail

By Jeralyn

The Guardian reports it was Great Britain, not Sweden, that decided to appeal the release of Wilileak's founder Julian Assange on bond.

The Crown Prosecution Service will go to the high court tomorrow to seek the reversal of a decision to free the WikiLeaks founder on bail, made yesterday by a judge at City of Westminster magistrates court.

It had been widely thought Sweden had made the decision to oppose bail, with the CPS acting merely as its representative. But today the Swedish prosecutor's office told the Guardian it had "not got a view at all on bail" and that Britain had made the decision to oppose bail.

The spokesperson for the Swedish Prosecutor's office says they don't have a view on bail and will not be submitting any evidence at tomorrow's hearing. The CPS has confirmed this. [More...]

The Guardian, which has seen the appeal, says the grounds are "Assange must be kept in prison until a decision is made whether to extradite him" and that the process could take months.

Is CPS now saying British law doesn't allow bail pending extradition? If that were the case, wouldn't the judge who set bail have known that? And why didn't the CPS make that argument at the initial hearing?

Also curious: At yesterday's hearing, Sweden opposed bail.

But a starkly different portrait of Assange was painted in court by Gemma Lindfield, representing the Swedish authorities, who said that "complaints have been made by two women of a serious sexual nature". Opposing bail, she said: "The court has already found Mr Assange is a flight risk and nothing has changed since last week."

So yesterday they opposed it and today they have "no view at all?" Something is off here.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 15, 2010 (boomark / email).