Julian Assange's extradition battle enters final round
He has been described as everything from Messianic visionary to terrorist, courageous battler for government accountability to sexual abuser. So why not chatshow host? That is the latest surprise incarnation announced by Julian Assange, who last week revealed his next step, after 13 months on bail fighting extradition to Sweden over sex assault accusations, would be to host a series of televised interviews with "iconoclasts, visionaries and power insiders" on the theme the world tomorrow". The series, beginning in mid-March, will comprise 10 weekly, 30-minute episodes to be screened on Russia Today, the Kremlin-controlled propaganda channel of the Russian government.
Whether the series is being pre-recorded is unclear, but as Assange knows, his next step – including where he will find himself in the next couple of months – is even less certain. On Wednesday , 421 days after he was arrested in London concerning sex assault allegations made by two Swedish women, the Australian will reach the final stage in his battle to avoid extradition to Stockholm to fight potential charges, when his case comes before the supreme court. And so his lengthy, surreal period of house arrest in a Norfolk mansion while fighting off, he recently revealed, the attention of the "hundreds" of besotted women who have turned up at his door, is coming to an end.
In February last year, a court ruled that Assange should be sent to Sweden to answer the accusations; he appealed, and lost. But two high court judges granted him leave to appeal to the highest British court, not on the circumstances of his own case but on a point of law: namely, whether a prosecutor had sufficient authority to require someone's extradition, as in Assange's case. Many legal observers were surprised when the supreme court not only agreed to hear Assange's petition, but said seven judges, rather than the usual five, would preside, "given the great public importance of the issue raised". The court will sit for two days, on 1 and 2 February, though the judges are unlikely to deliver their written verdict for a number of weeks.
Vaughan Smith, who has hosted Assange at his stately home, Ellingham Hall, for much of the past year on bail (Assange moved out shortly before Christmas), said the WikiLeaks founder views the supreme court decision as a "vindication" of his decision to fight extradition. "He felt if he was facing seven judges, clearly he had brought up a matter of public importance and, as a consequence, might argue that what he was doing had an element of public service about it."
full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jan/30/julian-assange-extradition-wikileaks