Two of Britain’s most senior judges declined all four of the objections his defense team had raised, summarizing their decision in five short words: “The court dismissed the appeal.” The decision makes it increasingly likely that Mr. Assange will face his accusers in Sweden.
The 43-page ruling was the latest twist in a 11-month legal battle that has seen multiple court appearances across London, throngs of supporters wielding placards and WikiLeaks temporarily shuttered. Mr. Assange was briefly jailed last December, as Swedish authorities filed an arrest warrant demanding he return to face allegations of sexual molestation, unlawful coercion and rape made by two WikiLeaks volunteers in Stockholm in August 2010.
He vehemently denies the allegations and has engaged a series of high-profile lawyers to fight the extradition warrant, arguing, among other things, that he could not get a fair trial and that he might face later extradition to the United States, where, he says, his life might be in danger. Mr. Assange has given interviews condemning Sweden’s strict sexual crimes laws, calling the country “the Saudi Arabia of feminism,” and he has compared himself to the civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.
Wednesday’s ruling marks the second time a British court has rejected his appeals. He has 14 days to ask the court for permission to bring his case before Britain’s highest court, the Supreme Court, for a final appeal. Similar to its American counterpart, the court hears only cases of constitutional or general public importance to the population of the whole country.
After the ruling Mr. Assange and his coterie of advisers and friends huddled together in the courthouse to discuss their options, flanked by security guards. “We will consider our next steps in the coming days,” he said in a brief statement to the throng of reporters gathered outside. But a person close to Mr. Assange said he would indeed appear in court again to seek permission to appeal. If it is not granted, Mr. Assange will be extradited to Sweden within 10 days.
Saying that he “has not been charged with any crime,” Mr. Assange lamented that the terms of the arrest warrant do not allow him to contest the extradition based on the substance of the case, which rests on accusations by the two women that consensual encounters with Mr. Assange became nonconsensual.
Mr. Assange appeared for an initial interview with the police in Sweden in 2010, but flew to London before further questioning could be completed, a court here was subsequently told. Swedish prosecutors decided to issue an Interpol red notice and a European arrest warrant to compel him to return.
He has told friends that he refused to return to Stockholm to face questioning because he fears that the country is run by a small cabal of interconnected people who are aligned against him. He believes that he is on trial, he has said, for an alleged affront to all Swedish women, and that court proceedings will be tainted by that wider anger.
Mr. Assange’s lawyers have also argued that if he were extradited from Sweden to the United States, he could face the death penalty over the leaking of classified American documents, citing comments by Sarah Palin and other conservative politicians earlier this year.
The WikiLeaks release of hundreds of thousands of classified United States military documents on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and classified State Department diplomatic cables dominated the front pages of newspapers across the world, including The New York Times, last year. Mr. Assange placed himself at the forefront of those releases, he told reporters, as a means of seeking publicity for documents he hoped would reshape the very nature of government.
But since he was briefly jailed last December, before being released on bail and placed under house arrest at the country mansion of a wealthy friend in eastern England, WikiLeaks has foundered. Mr. Assange told a press conference in London last month that it would cease its publishing activities because it lacked money following a blockade on donations to credit card companies like Visa and MasterCard, and the payments services Western Union and PayPal.
In the midst of Mr. Assange’s legal battles, the organization was severely weakened by a spate of defections from its core of specialist computer-programmer volunteers, insiders have said. Many, tired of what they described as Mr. Assange’s eccentricity and imperiousness, have formed their own document leaking sites.
Protesters, and celebrity supporters like the socialites Jemima Khan and Bianca Jagger, and the journalist John Pilger, have often conflated the case with a battle for free speech. Mr. Assange himself has hinted darkly that government forces might be behind the allegations of sexual wrongdoing as a means of silencing him.
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