19-08-2012, 04:29 AM
Telegraph.co.uk
Sunday 19 August 2012
Wikileaks: Julian Assange will take Britain to the 'World Court'
The WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will take Britain to the United Nation's International Court of Justice if it refuses to grant him safe passage to Ecuador, his lawyer said.
By Richard Alleyne
11:55AM BST 17 Aug 2012
The threat to appeal to the so-called "World Court" followed William Hague's promise to arrest Mr Assange if he tries to leave the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.
Mr Assange has taken refuge in the Knightsbridge embassy near Harrods department store for the last two months to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where he faces allegations of sexual assault.
Britain had threatened it would use a rarely cited law to revoke the embassy's diplomatic protection, and would barge into the embassy if Ecuador did not hand over Mr Assange.
Ecuador condemned the threat as a "complete intimidation".
"We will not allow Mr Assange safe passage out of the United Kingdom, nor is there any legal basis for us to do so," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Thursday.
The 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations says a host country may not enter the premises of an embassy without the represented country's permission.
Sir Tony Brenton, who served as the United Kingdom's ambassador to Russia between 2004 and 2008, said "arbitrarily" overturning the status of the building where Mr Assange has taken shelter to avoid extradition, would make life "impossible" for British diplomats overseas.
But embassies are not fully exempt from the jurisdiction of the countries they're in and are not sovereign territory of the represented state.
The FCO wrote to the embassy saying "You need to be aware that there is a legal base in the UK, the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987, that would allow us to take actions in order to arrest Mr Assange in the current premises of the Embassy.
"We sincerely hope that we do not reach that point, but if you are not capable of resolving this matter of Mr Assange's presence in your premises, this is an open option for us."
Baltasar Garzon, Mr Assange's lawyer who came to international attention in 1998 when he indicted Chilean ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet, said Britain was acting far beyond its authority because Mr Assange was a political refugee accepted for asylum by a sovereign nation and Britain was obligated to honour that.
"They have to comply with diplomatic and legal obligations under the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, and respect the sovereignty of a country that has granted asylum," he told the Spanish newspaper El Pais.
The refugee convention defines who is a refugee, and sets out the rights of individuals granted asylum and the responsibilities of nations that grant asylum.
It provides for special travel arrangements for refugees granted asylum under the convention.
He said: "If Britain doesn't comply with its obligations, we will go before International Court of Justice to demand that Britain complies with its obligations because there is a person who runs the risk of being persecuted politically."
Mr Assange has argued, and Ecuador agreed the evidence was strong, that the extradition to Sweden was a pretext for him to be sent to the US, where authorities were incensed by WikiLeaks' 2010 release of 391,832 secret US documents on the Iraqi war and 77,000 classified Pentagon documents on the Afghan conflict.
The whistle-blowing web site also made available about 250,000 confidential diplomatic cables between the U.S. State Department and more than 270 U.S. diplomatic outposts around the world.
Unconfirmed reports cited by The New York Times indicate a secret grand jury hearing in Alexandria, Va., was considering a U.S. Justice Department bid to charge Assange with espionage.
Leaked emails from Strategic Forecasting Inc., a global intelligence company, suggest a sealed indictment is ready to be made public when US officials determine the legal proceedings against Mr Assange in Britain and Sweden have come to a close.
Mr Assange claims Washington may want to execute him for "political crimes" associated with exposing government secrets.
He denies 2010 allegations of sexual molestation, coercion and rape made by two women in Stockholm, where he was promoting his website.
He is wanted for questioning on one count of unlawful coercion, two of sexual molestation and one of rape.
Swedish prosecutors say they have solid case against Assange, but have not charged him with a crime.
WikiLeaks said Mr Assange, 41, would give a "live" media statement "in front of" the Ecuadorean Embassy Sunday, when he will have been at the facility for two months.
He could be seized if Britain deems he has stepped outside the building's normally diplomatically protected zone.
British authorities intensified a police presence around the embassy.
About three dozen elite and other police units surrounded the embassy early Friday.
The Union of South American Nations, modelled on the European Union, said it would convene an "extraordinary meeting" in Ecuador Sunday to discuss the embassy crisis.
Adele
Sunday 19 August 2012
Wikileaks: Julian Assange will take Britain to the 'World Court'
The WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will take Britain to the United Nation's International Court of Justice if it refuses to grant him safe passage to Ecuador, his lawyer said.
By Richard Alleyne
11:55AM BST 17 Aug 2012
The threat to appeal to the so-called "World Court" followed William Hague's promise to arrest Mr Assange if he tries to leave the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.
Mr Assange has taken refuge in the Knightsbridge embassy near Harrods department store for the last two months to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where he faces allegations of sexual assault.
Britain had threatened it would use a rarely cited law to revoke the embassy's diplomatic protection, and would barge into the embassy if Ecuador did not hand over Mr Assange.
Ecuador condemned the threat as a "complete intimidation".
"We will not allow Mr Assange safe passage out of the United Kingdom, nor is there any legal basis for us to do so," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Thursday.
The 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations says a host country may not enter the premises of an embassy without the represented country's permission.
Sir Tony Brenton, who served as the United Kingdom's ambassador to Russia between 2004 and 2008, said "arbitrarily" overturning the status of the building where Mr Assange has taken shelter to avoid extradition, would make life "impossible" for British diplomats overseas.
But embassies are not fully exempt from the jurisdiction of the countries they're in and are not sovereign territory of the represented state.
The FCO wrote to the embassy saying "You need to be aware that there is a legal base in the UK, the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987, that would allow us to take actions in order to arrest Mr Assange in the current premises of the Embassy.
"We sincerely hope that we do not reach that point, but if you are not capable of resolving this matter of Mr Assange's presence in your premises, this is an open option for us."
Baltasar Garzon, Mr Assange's lawyer who came to international attention in 1998 when he indicted Chilean ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet, said Britain was acting far beyond its authority because Mr Assange was a political refugee accepted for asylum by a sovereign nation and Britain was obligated to honour that.
"They have to comply with diplomatic and legal obligations under the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, and respect the sovereignty of a country that has granted asylum," he told the Spanish newspaper El Pais.
The refugee convention defines who is a refugee, and sets out the rights of individuals granted asylum and the responsibilities of nations that grant asylum.
It provides for special travel arrangements for refugees granted asylum under the convention.
He said: "If Britain doesn't comply with its obligations, we will go before International Court of Justice to demand that Britain complies with its obligations because there is a person who runs the risk of being persecuted politically."
Mr Assange has argued, and Ecuador agreed the evidence was strong, that the extradition to Sweden was a pretext for him to be sent to the US, where authorities were incensed by WikiLeaks' 2010 release of 391,832 secret US documents on the Iraqi war and 77,000 classified Pentagon documents on the Afghan conflict.
The whistle-blowing web site also made available about 250,000 confidential diplomatic cables between the U.S. State Department and more than 270 U.S. diplomatic outposts around the world.
Unconfirmed reports cited by The New York Times indicate a secret grand jury hearing in Alexandria, Va., was considering a U.S. Justice Department bid to charge Assange with espionage.
Leaked emails from Strategic Forecasting Inc., a global intelligence company, suggest a sealed indictment is ready to be made public when US officials determine the legal proceedings against Mr Assange in Britain and Sweden have come to a close.
Mr Assange claims Washington may want to execute him for "political crimes" associated with exposing government secrets.
He denies 2010 allegations of sexual molestation, coercion and rape made by two women in Stockholm, where he was promoting his website.
He is wanted for questioning on one count of unlawful coercion, two of sexual molestation and one of rape.
Swedish prosecutors say they have solid case against Assange, but have not charged him with a crime.
WikiLeaks said Mr Assange, 41, would give a "live" media statement "in front of" the Ecuadorean Embassy Sunday, when he will have been at the facility for two months.
He could be seized if Britain deems he has stepped outside the building's normally diplomatically protected zone.
British authorities intensified a police presence around the embassy.
About three dozen elite and other police units surrounded the embassy early Friday.
The Union of South American Nations, modelled on the European Union, said it would convene an "extraordinary meeting" in Ecuador Sunday to discuss the embassy crisis.
Adele