Whistleblower walks: Assange freed on bail, pledges to clear name

Court sets WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange free on bail. Assange says he is innocent, work goes on.

LONDON:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange vowed to clear his name of allegations of sexual assault and pursue his work with the whistleblowing website after he was freed on bail by a London court on Thursday.

“I hope to continue my work and continue to protest my innocence in this matter and to reveal as we get it which we have not yet the evidence from these allegations,” Assange said on the steps of the High Court where he was greeted by media. Assange and his lawyers insist that moves to extradite him from Britain to Sweden are politically motivated.

Amid a hail of camera flashes, Assange thanked “all the people around the world who have had faith in me, who have supported my team while I have been away”. The 39-year-old Australian said that by granting him bail and releasing him after nine days in London’s Wandsworth prison, the British justice system had proved that “if justice is not always the outcome at least it is not dead yet”.

The man whose website has rocked Washington by releasing thousands of classified US diplomatic cables said his time in solitary confinement in the prison had helped him mull over the plight of detainees around the world.

His release had been delayed by several hours. A senior judge had earlier rejected an appeal by lawyers working on behalf of Sweden to keep him in jail pending extradition.

As a condition of his release, Assange will swap the stark surroundings of prison for a friend’s country mansion in Suffolk, eastern England.

Assange was in court to hear the senior judge reject an appeal against a ruling on Tuesday by a lower court that he be bailed.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 17th, 2010.