WikiLeaks founder Assange ‘unlikely’ to be extradited to US

LONDON - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is ‘very unlikely’ to be extradited to the US from Britain according to a US national security law expert.

Phillip Adams, an ABC radio presenter and member of the WikiLeaks Advisory Board, said in a phone interview said he believed the Swedish sexual misconduct case against Assange was “dubious and shonky”.

Adams said he could not see why US politicians wanted to prosecute Assange for his latest State Department cable leaks, as he was simply doing what journalists have done for years but on a much larger scale.

“Why the world is so rushing to condemn and to throw around words like ‘treason’, which are clearly inapplicable to a young Australian, astonishes me. I think the reaction around the world is bizarre, absolutely bizarre,” he said.

Critics have said that Assange has been denied his freedom. Diplomatic sources have reportedly revealed informal talks are under way for him to be transferred into US custody.

Swedish officials and their US counterparts have already discussed the possibility of Assange being delivered into the hands of US law enforcement to face potential charges over “espionage offences”, Britain’s The Independent reported, citing “diplomatic sources”.

Assange’s mother, Christine, who runs a puppet theatre in Queensland, speaking to The Sunshine Coast Daily, said she was worried her son would not get a fair trial.

“There’s no fair play here. My son has come forward of his own free will to face the charges against him and they have put him in the ring with his hands tied behind his back,” she said.

Assange’s son Daniel has called for his father to be treated “fairly and apolitically” following his arrest in Britain last night.

Assange faces extradition to Sweden to face rape and molestation accusations and Daniel wrote on his Twitter account that he was not encouraged by the behaviour of the Swedish legal system so far.

“I’d be advising WikiLeaks to up the ante and to keep leaking and to demonstrate that it’s bigger than Julian Assange. We will not be gagged,” Adams said. (ANI)