Deep Politics Forum

There are Somali pirates who have ended up in trials in the US. They will take anyone they like and have them charged and tried, if it suits them.

I'm conscious of the Pinochet precedent in the UK too and if that is stopping them this time.

A friend of mine thinks the Swedes will just put him up in a hotel to protect him till things settle then have the trial and charges will be dismissed and he can be on his way and Sweden's reputation restored in the process. I don't know if this is the same Sweden though given their shift to the right recently.

This is an important one (Ed - thanks for posting the link):

Quote:Wikileaks Shocker

Did Abbas Know in Advance about the Devastating Blitz on His Countrymen in Gaza?

by Stuart Littlewood / December 4th, 2010

One of the most grotesque Wikileaks revelations so far is the disclosure that Palestinian top dog (Fatah section), Mahmoud Abbas, was told in advance about the murderous assault on his countrymen in Gaza two years ago.

Some claim that the Wikileaks reye-openers are a ‘dirty tricks’ operation by people with a large axe to grind. It is certainly odd that ‘evidence’ is selected to portray Arab states as eager to see Iran zapped for an unproven nuclear threat when, actually, the Middle East is far more anxious about the very real and present nuclear threat from Israel.

That same mentality would no doubt wish to drive an ever bigger wedge between Fatah and political rival Hamas

So what are we to make of the documents claiming that in a June 2009 meeting between Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and a U.S. congressional delegation, Barak said that the Israeli government “had consulted with Egypt and Fatah prior to Operation Cast Lead, asking if they were willing to assume control of Gaza once Israel defeated Hamas”?

Fatah deny that it happened. Top aid to Palestinian president Abbas, Saeb Erekat, said: “We knew about the war because the Israelis were saying there was going to be a war.”

Several months before it started, at a meeting that he, Erekat, attended, Abbas asked Israel’s then-prime minister, Ehud Olmert, not to go to war, saying “he would not go to Gaza on an Israeli tank.”

So they admit they were talking about it…

I put the question to the Palestinian ambassador in London, Professor Manual Hassassian. “I am surprised to read the Wikileaks revelation that Mr Abbas, along with Mr Mubarak, was informed of Operation Cast lead in advance. I don’t recall his issuing a public warning to the unfortunate people of Gaza or appealing to the UN and western powers to intervene. Why would a Palestinian president keep quiet about an evil and horrendous war-crime he knew was about to be committed against his own people? Can you please throw any light on the matter?”

The ambassador replied: “I am surprised as you are, and cannot confirm the Wikileaks revelation whether they are authentic or not.”

No flat-out denial then, nor did he say he would refer the question upwards for clarification. You’d think the embassy would wish to show a clean pair of hands.

Abbas, as we all know, is living his elevated lifestyle on borrowed time. Since January 2009, when his term as president officially expired, western-backed Abbas has clung like superglue to power and overstayed his welcome. A year ago, having already taken a one-year extension regarded by many, including Hamas, as unlawful, he announced he had no wish to seek re-election at a presidential poll he promised for last January. But January came and went, and there was still no presidential election. Abbas is now nearing the end of his second year of illegitimate tenure.

I have two vivid images of Palestinians. The first, in Gaza, was the sight of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and the crusty old Catholic priest, Fr Manuel Mussallam, who had guarded his flock through utmost deprivation and the darkest of days (with many more to come), standing shoulder to shoulder in front of the microphones and cameras, both proclaiming that they were Palestinians first and Muslim/Christian second.

That’s unity of a welcome sort.

The other is of Fatah playing Israel’s armed poodle, reminiscent of the Vichy French government’s militia set up to fight the French Resistance and do much of the Nazis’ dirty work. Is Fatah prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Gaza Palestinians against the common enemy – the occupier – and proclaim themselves “Palestinians first” and Fatah/Hamas second?

Judging by their track record, no. Arrest and torture of their own people is more their game, we hear.

That’s disunity of the worst kind.

And you have to wonder why, if the story’s true, the Israelis felt comfortable discussing with the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority what would happen after their tanks and aircraft had pulverized the Gaza part of Palestine and shredded and vaporized its women and children.

A genuine leader knowing about plans for such a mega-crime would surely have sounded the alert and raised merry hell at the UN for preventive action.

Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. Read other articles by Stuart, or visit Stuart's website.

This article was posted on Saturday, December 4th, 2010 at 7:01am and is filed under Crimes against Humanity, Espionage/"Intelligence", Israel/Palestine, War Crimes, Wikileaks. ShareThis

http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/12/wikile...more-25993

One of the hypotheses about the origins of the Wikileaks cable dump is that it is a Mossad operation, designed to further Zionist objectives.

Amongst the wikileaks cables are details of "a June 2009 meeting between Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and a U.S. congressional delegation, Barak said that the Israeli government “had consulted with Egypt and Fatah prior to Operation Cast Lead, asking if they were willing to assume control of Gaza once Israel defeated Hamas”?"

So, what are we seeing here?

Many of us on DPF regard Abbas as an illegitimate quisling "leader" of the Palestinian people, and would not be greatly surprized to learn that he had sold out Hamas-dominated parts of "Palestine" to Israel's Operation Cast Lead.

The precise claim made in the cables is an assertion by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak that Abbas had been "consulted" about the IDF operation.

This particular cable has been ignored by MSM, and picked up by Stuart Littlewood @ Dissident Voice, who writes: "you have to wonder why, if the story’s true, the Israelis felt comfortable discussing with the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority what would happen after their tanks and aircraft had pulverized the Gaza part of Palestine and shredded and vaporized its women and children.

"A genuine leader knowing about plans for such a mega-crime would surely have sounded the alert and raised merry hell at the UN for preventive action."

In other words, if true, the claim confirms Abbas as a puppet, who is willing to allow his people to be slaughtered by the IDF.

Given that the wikileaks cables prove that Arab leaders have been speaking with forked tongues, privately urging an Israeli-American attack on Shia Iran, this Barak/Abbas information potentially adds another traitor to the gallery of Arab leaders betraying their people.

Against this, the Abbas information is completely toxic to the MSM fairytale about middle eastern peace talks with Obama as an honest broker. If Barak's claim in the cable is true, it proves that the American-sponsored Israel-Palestine peace talks are completely illegitimate. Because Abbas is a quisling.

The entire Obama-Hiillary edifice is revealed as a sham.

Is this in Mossad's interests?

I wiill be watching the coverage of the Barak claims about Abbas with great interest for the light they may shine on the origin or use of the wikileaks cables by intelligence agencies.

Netanyahu says his is vindicated by the leaked cables becaue of what they say about Iran. Ahmadinejad says he is vindicated because of they say about the duplicity of the Arab rulers. I think it just shows that the US is obsessed with getting hold of Iran and its resources and will play any one they think are useful in furthering that. All the better to move on to Russia and China and get theirs.

Abbas is a traitor to his people.

Two, Three, Many Wikileaks

by Peter LaVenia / December 5th, 2010

Wikileaks is the most important thing to happen to the cause of democratic rule since the multitude of grassroots uprisings in 1968. Even sympathetic commentators miss the fundamentally radical threat to the existence of the bureaucratic state it represents; Wikileaks is most powerful contemporary weapon in the arsenal of radical, grassroots transparency advocates and democrats. A decentralized plethora of Wikileaks-type websites focused on local, state, and national affairs in every nation, scouring for document leaks from governments, corporations, and organizations has the potential to shatter an intrinsic part of the modern state’s anti-democratic structure: the ability of bureaucrats and officials to hide decisions and actions from the demos itself. Not only can this be done with the tools now available to us, it must be done.

State secrecy is nothing new, but the rise of the modern bureaucratic state is barely a century old, coinciding with the rise of massive industry and, ironically, with the advent of universal suffrage. Its rise chronicled by intellectual luminaries of the day such as Max Weber and Robert Michels, bureaucracy was the extension of rationalized organizational patterns from industrial capitalism to the sphere of government. Prior to the twentieth century Western governments kept the masses from participating via restrictive suffrage laws; after the advent of universal suffrage this shifted to limiting the possibility of direct democratic influence through oligarchic control over organizations necessary for the maintenance of the modern industrial society: political parties, state institutions, and capitalist corporations. Radical democrats fought back, and the twentieth century is littered with attempts at curtailing the power of elite oligarchy found in bureaucratic institutions via workers’ councils, grassroots political parties, the alternative press – but none ever succeeded in breaking the hold of secrecy and control they fought.

Complete transparency in government (and the economy) is a necessary feature of any truly democratic socio-economic system. Alienating the democratic will of many into that of a few representatives is a compromise (Rousseau claimed it was the abolition of democracy), and to retain any sort of democratic power the citizen must ultimately have access to everything their government does, overtly and covertly. It provides a necessary check against anti-democratic rule and government lies and half-truths. Without full access to information, it is often difficult for a person to make the best choice in any circumstance. Without access to information, the modern citizen has become a passive player in what amounts to a sham democracy, controlled by elites and bureaucrats cloaked in secrecy. It is the bureaucrats and elites who have access to critical information, allowing them to rule unchecked. Wikileaks provides the demos the possibility of reversing that trend.

The growth of the national security state and the technology it has used to dis-empower the demos is without parallel in world history. Yet, as Karl Marx long ago observed, every socio-economic advance eventually creates the conditions for its own demise – its own gravediggers. Capitalism created immense wealth, poverty, and the most concentrated and powerful ruling class in history, but via the collection of the urban working class and intense development of technology the possibility (still just a possibility) of a truly egalitarian order. The modern industrial bureaucratic state, itself part and parcel of contemporary capitalism, created vast swathes of routinized specialists across society whose technical expertise and need for secrecy eventually compromised the possibility of democratic check on their rule. Yet, the seeds for change, always existent within the bureaucracy, are now being actualized.

Much has been made of Wikileaks as reaction to the craven complicity of the mass media to the state. This is undoubtedly true, but again misses the point. Noam Chomsky pointed out long ago that the media, privately run and owned by corporate executives, has always been a gatekeeper and a fundamental part of industrial society. Reporters do not only desire access to the state, preventing them from consistently acting as a check on the oligarchs; the media is a pillar of the modern state. It has as much interest in the state’s survival (profits, elite status itself) as Wall Street or Barack Obama. When its paid employees attack the recklessness of Wikileaks, they are attacking their own ability to carefully manage and shape information for the public’s consumption. Wikileaks does no editing, save for redacting some names; it presents information to the public for its own analysis, understanding, and enlightenment. Wikileaks does not rely upon legions of trained reporters, but rather other citizens for its information. The release of the documents from Iraq was done by a courageous soldier who had come to understand the extent of the American state’s imperialism and crimes, and wished, for the benefit of other citizens and without monetary remuneration but rather prison in the offing, to expose the plutocrats who had conducted the war.

Wikileaks was, thus, always a latent possibility with the advent of the Internet and direct mass information exchange worldwide. Like any other anti-systemic movement, it only took a group of committed people to organize and exploit that possibility. It is, then, up to those committed to radical democracy and egalitarian social change to extend the gains made by Wikileaks by proliferating its example and encouraging the growth of transparency via document dumps at all levels. A world where all levels of government and the economy would have to be wary of exposure is one where the rank-and-file would no longer be met with opaque silence about the inner-workings of government, but could begin to take the oligarchs and plutocrats to task, the first step in a truly democratic worldwide revolution. Bureaucracy’s wall of mystique will be shattered, and the demos will wrest control away from the officials and the elected representatives who rely on secrecy to cut deals, divide the population, and keep the masses dis-empowered.

It is not often that the wheels of history give us the potential to swing the pendulum toward democratic rule and a curtailment of elite power. We have such a chance now, and it is up to us to take advantage of it. Let a thousand Wikileaks bloom – let us build the democracy of tomorrow, today.

Peter LaVenia is Co-Chair of the NY State Green Party and a PhD candidate in Political Theory, SUNY Albany. He can be reached at: Chair2@gpny.org.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec...ng-watched

Quote:Julian Assange's lawyers say they are being watched
WikiLeaks founder's lawyers also accuse US state department of inappropriate behaviour in not respecting attorney-client protocol
Sam Jones and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 5 December 2010 16.16 GMT


Julian Assange's lawyer Mark Stephens appears on BBC1's Andrew Marr Show and denounces the warrant for Assange's extradition for questioning on sex allegations in Sweden as a 'political stunt'. Photograph: Jeff Overs/BBC/PA

Lawyers representing the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, say that they have been surveilled by members of the security services and have accused the US state department of behaving "inappropriately" by failing to respect attorney-client protocol.

Jennifer Robinson and Mark Stephens of the law firm Finers Stephens Innocent told the Guardian they had been watched by people parked outside their houses for the past week.

"I've noticed people consistently sitting outside my house in the same cars with newspapers," said Robinson. "I probably noticed certain things a week ago, but mostly it's been the last three or four days."

Stephens said he, too, had had his home watched. Asked who he thought was monitoring him, he said: "The security services."

Robinson said the legal team was also experiencing "other forms of pressure" from Washington.

She pointed to a letter from a state department legal adviser – addressed to both Assange and her – which appeared to bracket together client and lawyer as if to suggest that WikiLeaks and its lawyers were one and the same.

The letter, which was released to the press, begins: "Dear Ms Robinson and Mr Assange. I am writing in response to your 26 November 2010 letter to US Ambassador Louis B Susman regarding your intention to again publish on your WikiLeaks site what you claim to be classified US government documents."

Robinson said: "By eliding client and lawyer, that was a very inappropriate attempt to implicate me. That is really inappropriate to come from the state department of all places; they understand very well the rules on attorney-client protocol."

She said that although they had requested a public retraction from the state department, no answer had been received.

"It's quite a serious situation," she said, adding that, according to the UN's Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, governments should ensure that lawyers "are able to perform all of their professional functions without intimidation, hindrance, harassment or improper interference" and that "lawyers shall not be identified with their clients or their clients' causes as a result of discharging their functions".

A spokeswoman for the Home Office declined to comment on the lawyers' surveillance claims.

Assange, who is staying in Britain, has come under growing pressure from politicians in the US and around the world after his site started publishing excerpts from a cache of 250,000 secret American diplomatic cables last week.

It emerged on Saturday that Australian police are investigating whether Assange, an Australian citizen, has broken any of the country's laws and is liable to prosecution there.

The foreign minister, Kevin Rudd, said: "The Australian government unequivocally condemns the action by any of those responsible for the unauthorised release of classified and confidential information and diplomatic communications between states."

Swedish prosecutors have sent an international arrest warrant to the Metropolitan police, seeking the extradition of Assange for questioning on allegations – which he strongly denies – of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion.

Stephens today denounced the extradition warrant as a "political stunt" and said Assange would fight deportation to Sweden on the grounds that it could lead to him being handed over to the US, where senior politicians have called for him to be executed.

The former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has described him as "an anti-American operative with blood on his hands" and called for him to be hunted down like a Taliban leader, while another senior Republican, Mike Huckabee, has said that "anything less than execution is too kind a penalty" for his actions.

Stephens said that Sweden's chief prosecutor had told Assange in September that there was no case for him to answer, following complaints against him by two women, but the investigation was revived following the intervention of a Swedish politician.

He said that Swedish prosecutors knew where Assange was and urged them to call him to discuss the case.

Stephens told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show: "It is quite bizarre, because the chief prosecutor in Sweden dropped the entire case against him, saying there was absolutely nothing for him to find back in September, and then a few weeks later on – after the intervention of a Swedish politician – a new prosecutor, not in Stockholm where Julian and these women had been, but in Gothenburg, began a new case which has resulted in these warrants and the Interpol Red Notice being put out."

He added: "It does seem to be a political stunt."

From http://wlcentral.org/node/480

2010-12-04: NSW Supreme Court Solicitor Peter Kemp: Letter to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard

Submitted by admin on Sat, 12/04/2010 - 04:09
By Peter Kemp, Solicitor of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, on 2010-12-04
Dear Prime Minister
From the Sydney Morning Herald I note you made a comment of "illegal" on the matter of Mr Assange in relation to the ongoing leaks of US diplomatic cables.
Previously your colleague and Attorney General the Honourable McClelland announced an investigation of possible criminality by Mr Assange.
As a lawyer and citizen I find this most disturbing, particularly so when a brief perusal of the Commonwealth Criminal Code shows that liability arises under the Espionage provisions, for example, only when it is the Commonwealth's "secrets" that are disclosed and that there must be intent to damage the Commonwealth.
Likewise under Treason law, there must be an intent to assist an enemy. Clearly, and reinforced by publicly available material such as Professor Saul's excellent article:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/dont-cry-over-wikil...
...Julian Assange has almost certainly committed no crime under Australian law in relation to his involvement in Wikileaks.
I join with Professor Saul also in asking you Prime Minister why has there been no public complaint to the US about both Secretaries of State Condaleeza Rice and Hillary Clinton being in major breach of International law ie UN Covenants, by making orders to spy on UN personnel, including the Secretary General, to include theft of their credit card details and communication passwords. Perhaps the Attorney General should investigate this clear prima facie evidence of crime (likely against Australian diplomats as well), rather than he attempts to prosecute the messenger of those crimes.
It is also disturbing that no Australian official has castigated Sweden for the shameful treatment Mr Assange has received ie his human rights abused, in that he has not been charged and served with papers in the English language regarding the evidence against him of alleged sexual offences. This is contrary to Article 6 of the European Covenant on Human Rights to which Sweden is a signatory nation.
Those offences remain unclear and the Swedish prosecutor Ms Ny appears to be making up the law as she wants. It appears now, by Ms Ny's interpretation that when consensual sex occurs but if a condom breaks, the male party is liable to 2 years imprisonment for sexual assault. All this information is publicly available.
An Australian citizen is apparently being singled out for "special treatment" Prime Minister. There are legitimate concerns among citizens here that his treatment by the Swedes is connected to US interests which are against the activities of Wikileaks, and you will note the strident, outrageous (and illegal) calls inciting violence against him in the US in demands for his assassination, by senior influential US politicians.
Granted that in western political circles, Mr Assange is not flavour of the month, but what he is doing in my opinion, and in the opinion of many here and abroad, is vitally necessary to expose American foreign policy failures and potential war crimes and crimes against humanity--not for the purpose of damaging US interests but to make them accountable.
While we have close and a good relationship with the US, there is no doubt that US influence and power is declining. That we appear to be still posturing, (given that declining power and a new paradigm of privately enforced accountability) to the US on the issue of Wikileaks is, Prime Minister, deeply disappointing.
Yours Faithfully
Peter Kemp.
(Readers are encouraged contact the Australian Prime Minister here: http://www.pm.gov.au/PM_Connect/Email_your_PM)
Update: Darren Bailey, Solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia, has written a letter to the Australian Prime Minister in support of Peter Kemp's argument.


I say: Bravo Mr. Kemp!

Great letter! The second letter is great, as well! Lot more like that needed, worldwide!...not the least in the USA to the Beast attacking Assange/Wikileaks with every dirty trick and breaking of the rules imaginable.

No surprise his lawyers are being pressured and under surveillance. Soon they will all need 'food taster' goldfish. Again, imagine how many criminals are out there who have not used a condom in consensual sex [with a CIA honeypot, it seems too] - or the condom broke..... Millions! Tens of Millions. Hundreds of Millions...but Assange is target #1. Gee, I wonder why? :ciao:

------------------------------------------------
A bit more on death threats:
Julian Assange: "Geopolitics will be separated into pre and post 'Cablegate"

JOSEBA ELOLA - Madrid - 05/12/2010

Saturday the 4th of december. 6.41 pm. Julian Assange seats in front of his computer for a chat interview with EL PAÍS. Interpol is looking for him. His webite is under constant attacks. The 39 year old Australian, and Wikileaks founder, says he has a terrible headache. The last 24 hours were tough.

Q. I read you are taking steps to protect yourselves (you and other people from Wikileaks) after receiving many death threats ¿Where are those death threats coming from?

A. We have hundreds of specific death threats from US military militants. That is not unusual, and we have become practiced from past experiences at ignoring such threats from Islamic extremists, African kleptocrats and so on. Recently the situation has changed with these threats now extending out our lawyers and my children. However it is the specific calls from the elites of US society for our assassination, kidnapping and execution that is more concerning. These range from a US senate bill by John Ensign which seeks to declare us a "transnational threat" to assassination calls from former Bush speech writers such as Marc Thessian in The Washington Post and Bill o'reilly of Fox news.

Q. Your children? How were they threatened?

A. I believe it is better to not encourage these ideas too much by talking about them. However some rightwing sites also called for attacking me via my children. I predicted this might happen since April, so since that time I have had to stay away from my family. Wait a moment. I get you some evidence.

Assange sends a document with a list of all the threats the organization has endured these days. http://filebin.ca/jzzfz/ListPeople_Assan...alized.pdf. There are more. That is some one of our lawyers found.

Q. I guess this one must have been one of the toughest weeks for Wikileaks. How is the organization doing, how many people are helping you with the DDos (electronic attacks)? Do you feel well surrounded to keep strong?

A. The organisation is strong. We have a lot of support, however we also have many attacks of different forms. From ongoing mass DDOS attacks to smears and the legal issues.

Q. How many people help you deal with the DDOS attacks?

A. We have dozens helping and setting up mirror sites but it takes a lot of time for us to manage the process. We are automating that process and will soon have hundreds. If there is a battle between the US military and the preservation of History, we have insured, History will win.

Q. Is this the biggest leak ever? Or the most relevant? Or was it Ellsberg?s with the Pentagon papers?

A. This is the biggest, at over 265 million words and the most relevant - it covers every serious issue in every country-. It is more significant than the Pentagon Papers.

Q. What will be the consequences of this megaleak?

A. It is too early to say yet. The ripples are just starting to flow throughout the world. But I believe geopolitics will be separated into pre and post cablegate phases. Two more questions. I have to go soon I'm afraid...

Q. Speaking to Time magazine you said that Clinton should resign if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering US diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations. Should that be the case, shouldn?t it be Obama the one who should resingn?

A. The whole chain of command who was aware of this order, and approved it, must resign if the US is to be seen to be a credible nation that obeys the rule of law. The order is so serious it may well have been put to the president for approval.

Q. So, should Obama resign, then? And please, allow just five minutes for a couple of questions, if you can, please.

A. Obama must answer what he knew about this illegal order and when. If he refuses to answer or there is evidence he approved of these actions, he must resign.

Q. Is it right that Scotland Yard knows where you are and that you have made yourself available to speak with Swedish authorities, including the prosecutor handling the case?

A...

Q. Hello? Still there?

A. ...

Q. ¿Is it over?

A. Sorry. Internet disconnected momentarily

Q. Will I be able to ask just two extra questions?

A. Ok. make them quick

Q. Well, first, the one I asked ¿Is it right that you made yourself available to speak with Swedish authorities? What are you going to do about the case after the Sweedish Supreme court' s denial of your appeal?

A. We will fight them and expose them, naturally. That there is something "wrong" with this case is now obvious to everyone.

Q. Do you plan to stay in a hidden place or are you willing to have your say with the Swedish Justice?

A. Ok. I have to go now.

Q. Please, answer if you intend to stay in a hidden place, if you can.

[The chat is over. Julian?s assistant writes: He?gone. Sorry!]

http://wlcentral.org/

Many interesting articles....part of one below - his British lawyer speaking:

"Mr. Assange has repeatedly sought meetings with the Prosecutrix - both in Sweden and subsequently - in order to answer her questions and clear his name. It is relevant that Mr. Assange sought permission from the Prosecutrix to leave Sweden and she gave him her permission. Since leaving Sweden Mr. Assange has continued to seek meetings with the Prosecutrix, but his requests have either been ignored or met with a refusal."

"Bizarrely, the Prosecutrix - having ignored or rejected those offers of voluntary cooperation - instead sought an arrest warrant to have Mr. Assange held incommunicado without giving his Swedish lawyer sufficient notice, access to evidence or information to take proper instructions from Mr. Assange. This action is all the more peculiar as she has not even issued a formal summons for his interrogation or brought charges against Mr. Assange," the statement added.

"Since the rape charge has been dropped, the current allegation he faces does not - as a matter of Swedish law - justify an arrest warrant for Mr. Assange. The sole ground for the warrant is the Prosecutor's blatantly false allegation that he is on the run from justice: he left Sweden lawfully and has offered himself for questioning," Stephens said.

"At this point in time we have no evidence pointing to a link between these allegations from August and the issue of the Interpol alert just two days after the WikiLeaks first release of US diplomatic cables. However, it is highly unusual for a red notice warrant to be issued in relation to the allegations reported as having been made, since Swedish law does not require custodial orders in relation to the allegation - indeed to our knowledge this is a unique action by the Swedish prosecuting authorities in applying for a red notice on the basis of these allegations," Stephens’ statement concluded.

"We are also investigating whether the Prosecutor's application to have Mr. Assange held incommunicado without access to lawyers, visitors or other prisoners - again a unique request - is in any way linked to this matter and the recent, rather bellicose US statements of an intention to prosecute Mr. Assange."

In an interview with Sweden's TV4, prosecutor Marianne Ny has categorically refused to meet with Julian Assange in the UK, despite repeated offers from Assange's lawyers, reports Expressen.

76 mirrors to date - and counting.

Plus masses of static mirrors and other clever linking stuff here

I'm working at getting a live one up on the wikispooks server. Meanwhile I've put a banner link up on Wikispooks main page and will try to ensure it always links to a live site

They are going to have to hit the nuke button to stop this now