Assange Granted Bail And Vows To Continue Fight

The WikiLeaks furore continues today as the organisation’s founder, Julian Assange, was granted bail in London but with conditions, including cash guarantees of £240,000.

However, at the time of writing it seemed that Assange would remain in custody, as prosecutors have two hours to lodge an appeal against bail.

His bail has been set at a hefty £240,000. The sum is made up of £200,000 as a security to the court, as well as two individual £20,000 sureties.

Bail Conditions

Assange also has to surrender his passport and will have to obey a curfew at an address in Suffolk. In addition, Assange will have to wear an electronic tag and report to a local police station every evening.

That is if prosecutors do not log an appeal against his bail.

If not, Assange will be free over Christmas and will have to return to the court on 11 January.

Assange 39, has been in Wandsworth jail since handing himself over to police in the UK after an international arrest warrant was issued in Sweden over allegations of sex offences. The Swedish authorities are pressing for Assange to be extradited to Stockholm to face charges.

He is attracting the sort of support that is usually reserved by political prisoners, with supporters crowding the outside of the court room. Heiress Jemima Khan, political activist Bianca Jagger, film director Ken Loach, and journalist and campaigner John Pilger, are all thought to have contributed to his surety fund.

Assange Hits Out

And speaking before his court appearance at 2pm today, Assange made it clear that he remains unrepentant for the leaks of classified US diplomatic cables on the WikiLeaks website. And he also criticised the high profile firms that have cut off funds to his website.

Assange gave his mother the following statement.

“My convictions are unfaltering. I remain true to the ideals I have expressed,” Assange said according to Sky News.

“This circumstance shall not shake them. If anything this process has increased my determination that they are true and correct,” he said, before accusing big name companies as acting as US stooges.

“We now know that Visa, Mastercard, Paypal and others are instruments of US foreign policy. It’s not something we knew before,” Assange said. “I am calling for the world to protect my work and my people from these illegal and immoral attacks.”

Cyber War

A fierce cyber war has been triggered by WikiLeaks supporters including the Anonymous group of “hacktivists“, that has brought down the websites of PayPal and Mastercard after they stopped processing payments for the whistleblowing site.

And it seems that Assange’s supporters are switching their attacks from websites to a rather old fashioned alternative, namely the fax machines of the companies who have withdrawn services from Wikileaks.

According to Netcraft, activists are being encouraged to send faxes to Amazon, MasterCard, Moneybookers, PayPal, Visa and Tableau Software.

Leakflood activists published a list of fax numbers, encouraging members to send over extracts from leaked cables, and images of Guy Fawkes. They are advised to use the MyFax free fax service and to take steps to ensure their anonymity.

Meanwhile several people involved with WikiLeaks have resigned to start up their own rival whistle-blower site, called Openleaks.