Leaked video shows gunship killing journalists
Updated Tue Apr 6, 2010 12:26pm AEST
The video shows nine people, including two journalists, walking through a Baghdad street before being shot. (collateralmurder.com)
• Related Link: Watch the leaked video here: graphic content warning
Classified US military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters that killed 12 people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff, has been released by a group that promotes leaking to fight government and corporate corruption.
The group, WikiLeaks, told a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington that it acquired encrypted video of the July 12 attack from military whistleblowers and had been able to view and investigate it after breaking the encryption code.
A US defence official confirmed the video and audio were authentic.
The helicopter gunsight video, with an audio track of talking between the pilots, shows an aerial view of a group of men moving about a square in a Baghdad neighbourhood. The fliers identify some of the men as armed.
WikiLeaks said the men in the square included Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, who were killed in the incident.
"The gathering at the corner that is fired upon has about nine people in it," Julian Assange, a WikiLeaks spokesman said.
The gunsight tracks the two Reuters news staff as the pilots identify their cameras as weapons.
The helicopter initially opens fire on the small group. Minutes later a van comes by and people inside start helping the wounded and the helicopter opens fire on the van.
David Schlesinger, editor in chief of Reuters, said the deaths of Mr Noor-Eldeen and Mr Chmagh were "tragic and emblematic of the extreme dangers that exist in covering war zones".
"The video released today via WikiLeaks is graphic evidence of the dangers involved in war journalism and the tragedies that can result," he said.
Reuters has pressed the US military to conduct a full and objective investigation into the killing of the two staff.
Video of the incident from two US Apache helicopters and photographs taken of the scene were shown to Reuters editors in Baghdad on July 25, 2007 in an off-the-record briefing.
US military officers who presented the materials said Reuters had to make a request under freedom of information laws to get copies. This request was made the same day.
Mr Assange said he disagreed with a US military assessment of the incident that the attack was justified.
"I believe that if those killings were lawful under the rules of engagement, then the rules of engagement are wrong, deeply wrong," he said.
The pilots in the video act "like they are playing a computer game and their desire is they want to get high scores" by killing opponents, he said.
WikiLeaks posted the video at http://www.collateralmurder.com.
- Reuters
Tags: unrest-conflict-and-war, iraq, united-states
First posted Tue Apr 6, 2010 10:24am AEST
@@@
Don't shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths Julian Assange From: The Australian December 08, 2010 12:00AM
189 commentsIncrease
Elizabeth Cook's artist impression of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's appearance at Westminster Magistrates Court in London, where he was denied bail after appearing on an extradition warrant. Source: AP
WIKILEAKS deserves protection, not threats and attacks.
IN 1958 a young Rupert Murdoch, then owner and editor of Adelaide's The News, wrote: "In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win."
His observation perhaps reflected his father Keith Murdoch's expose that Australian troops were being needlessly sacrificed by incompetent British commanders on the shores of Gallipoli. The British tried to shut him up but Keith Murdoch would not be silenced and his efforts led to the termination of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.
Nearly a century later, WikiLeaks is also fearlessly publishing facts that need to be made public.
I grew up in a Queensland country town where people spoke their minds bluntly. They distrusted big government as something that could be corrupted if not watched carefully. The dark days of corruption in the Queensland government before the Fitzgerald inquiry are testimony to what happens when the politicians gag the media from reporting the truth.
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
Related CoverageWikiLeaks explained
Herald Sun, 4 hours ago
WikiLeaks live Q&A
The Australian, 9 hours ago
WikiLeaks boss vows to fight extradition
Adelaide Now, 12 hours ago
Assange: Don't shoot messenger
Adelaide Now, 1 day ago
WikiLeaks - the website that just won't die
Courier Mail, 1 day ago
.End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
These things have stayed with me. WikiLeaks was created around these core values. The idea, conceived in Australia, was to use internet technologies in new ways to report the truth.
WikiLeaks coined a new type of journalism: scientific journalism. We work with other media outlets to bring people the news, but also to prove it is true. Scientific journalism allows you to read a news story, then to click online to see the original document it is based on. That way you can judge for yourself: Is the story true? Did the journalist report it accurately?
Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that media. The media helps keep government honest. WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, and broken stories about corporate corruption.
People have said I am anti-war: for the record, I am not. Sometimes nations need to go to war, and there are just wars. But there is nothing more wrong than a government lying to its people about those wars, then asking these same citizens to put their lives and their taxes on the line for those lies. If a war is justified, then tell the truth and the people will decide whether to support it.
If you have read any of the Afghan or Iraq war logs, any of the US embassy cables or any of the stories about the things WikiLeaks has reported, consider how important it is for all media to be able to report these things freely.
WikiLeaks is not the only publisher of the US embassy cables. Other media outlets, including Britain's The Guardian, The New York Times, El Pais in Spain and Der Spiegel in Germany have published the same redacted cables.
Yet it is WikiLeaks, as the co-ordinator of these other groups, that has copped the most vicious attacks and accusations from the US government and its acolytes. I have been accused of treason, even though I am an Australian, not a US, citizen. There have been dozens of serious calls in the US for me to be "taken out" by US special forces. Sarah Palin says I should be "hunted down like Osama bin Laden", a Republican bill sits before the US Senate seeking to have me declared a "transnational threat" and disposed of accordingly. An adviser to the Canadian Prime Minister's office has called on national television for me to be assassinated. An American blogger has called for my 20-year-old son, here in Australia, to be kidnapped and harmed for no other reason than to get at me.
And Australians should observe with no pride the disgraceful pandering to these sentiments by Julia Gillard and her government. The powers of the Australian government appear to be fully at the disposal of the US as to whether to cancel my Australian passport, or to spy on or harass WikiLeaks supporters. The Australian Attorney-General is doing everything he can to help a US investigation clearly directed at framing Australian citizens and shipping them to the US.
Prime Minister Gillard and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have not had a word of criticism for the other media organisations. That is because The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel are old and large, while WikiLeaks is as yet young and small.
We are the underdogs. The Gillard government is trying to shoot the messenger because it doesn't want the truth revealed, including information about its own diplomatic and political dealings.
Has there been any response from the Australian government to the numerous public threats of violence against me and other WikiLeaks personnel? One might have thought an Australian prime minister would be defending her citizens against such things, but there have only been wholly unsubstantiated claims of illegality. The Prime Minister and especially the Attorney-General are meant to carry out their duties with dignity and above the fray. Rest assured, these two mean to save their own skins. They will not.
Every time WikiLeaks publishes the truth about abuses committed by US agencies, Australian politicians chant a provably false chorus with the State Department: "You'll risk lives! National security! You'll endanger troops!" Then they say there is nothing of importance in what WikiLeaks publishes. It can't be both. Which is it?
It is neither. WikiLeaks has a four-year publishing history. During that time we have changed whole governments, but not a single person, as far as anyone is aware, has been harmed. But the US, with Australian government connivance, has killed thousands in the past few months alone.
US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates admitted in a letter to the US congress that no sensitive intelligence sources or methods had been compromised by the Afghan war logs disclosure. The Pentagon stated there was no evidence the WikiLeaks reports had led to anyone being harmed in Afghanistan. NATO in Kabul told CNN it couldn't find a single person who needed protecting. The Australian Department of Defence said the same. No Australian troops or sources have been hurt by anything we have published.
But our publications have been far from unimportant. The US diplomatic cables reveal some startling facts:
► The US asked its diplomats to steal personal human material and information from UN officials and human rights groups, including DNA, fingerprints, iris scans, credit card numbers, internet passwords and ID photos, in violation of international treaties. Presumably Australian UN diplomats may be targeted, too.
► King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia asked the US to attack Iran.
► Officials in Jordan and Bahrain want Iran's nuclear program stopped by any means available.
► Britain's Iraq inquiry was fixed to protect "US interests".
► Sweden is a covert member of NATO and US intelligence sharing is kept from parliament.
► The US is playing hardball to get other countries to take freed detainees from Guantanamo Bay. Barack Obama agreed to meet the Slovenian President only if Slovenia took a prisoner. Our Pacific neighbour Kiribati was offered millions of dollars to accept detainees.
In its landmark ruling in the Pentagon Papers case, the US Supreme Court said "only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government". The swirling storm around WikiLeaks today reinforces the need to defend the right of all media to reveal the truth.
Julian Assange is the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks.
189 comments on this story
@@@
WikiLeaks outs Mark Arbib as US informant
• Paul Maley, Mark Dodd and Peter Wilson
• From: The Australian
• December 09, 2010 12:00AM
• FEDERAL Labor powerbroker Mark Arbib has been outed as a key source of intelligence on government and internal party machinations to the US embassy.
New embassy cables, released by WikiLeaks to Fairfax newspapers today, reveal the influential right-wing Labor MP has been one of the embassy's best ALP informants, along with former frontbencher Bob McMullan and current MP Michael Danby.
The documents say the Minister for Sport had been secretly offering details of Labor's inner workings even before his election to the Senate in 2007, dating back to his time as general secretary of the party's NSW branch from 2004.
Senator Arbib was one of the "faceless men" who was instrumental in the decision to oust Kevin Rudd and install Julia Gillard as Prime Minister in June.
The documents also identify Senator Arbib as a strong backer of the Australia-US alliance.
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
Julian Assange
Should Australia oppose any attempts to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the US?
Yes
No
Vote now
Related Coverage
• BACKFIRE: Gillard left to face backlash
• RUDD: US to blame for leaks
• LEGAL WRANGLING: Assange may be released
• ASSANGE: 'Elvis of the internet' cool in court
• FEATURE: Rudd revelations are old news
• JULIAN ASSANGE WRITES: Don't shoot the messenger
• IN DEPTH: WikiLeaks
• US launches bid to get hands on Assange Courier Mail, 6 hours ago
• It's 'political revenge' on Assange The Daily Telegraph, 6 hours ago
• Jailed Assange's glimmer of hope The Australian, 6 hours ago
• Storm brews as Assange held Herald Sun, 14 hours ago
• Assange poised to be Labor's Hicks The Australian, 16 hours ago
"He understands the importance of supporting a vibrant relationship with the US while not being too deferential. We have found him personable, confident and articulate," an embassy profile on Senator Arbib written in July last year says. "He has met with us repeatedly throughout his political rise."
The embarrassing revelations come as lawyers for whistleblower Julian Assange say the 39-year-old Australian will not be safe if he is sent to Sweden for trial because the "endgame" of US authorities is to move him there to be charged with espionage.
The US Justice Department is considering charging Mr Assange with espionage over the website's release of a mass of classified documents and Britain's The Independent newspaper said US and Swedish officials had already held informal discussions about the possibility of him being delivered into US custody.
Mr Assange was yesterday refused bail and sent to London's Wandsworth prison after appearing in a British court to answer a Swedish extradition application.
In the latest of a series of secret cables obtained by Mr Assange's WikiLeaks outfit, US officials reportedly described Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd as abrasive, impulsive and a "control freak" who insisted on micro-managing issues.
The cables, published in Fairfax newspapers, revealed how an initially favourable US response to Mr Rudd becoming prime minister quickly changed to strident criticism of his leadership style. Mr Rudd was dismissed in one US cable as a "mistake-prone control freak".
In a series of interviews yesterday, Mr Rudd dismissed the US criticism as "water off a duck's back" but was quick to blame lax US security rather than Mr Assange for the humiliating leaks.
"Mr Assange is not himself responsible for the unauthorised release of 250,000 documents from the US diplomatic communications network," Mr Rudd told Reuters news agency. "The Americans are responsible for that. I don't, frankly, give a damn about this sort of thing. Just get on with it."
Julia Gillard was quick to reaffirm her strong support for the beleaguered minister, saying he was doing a first-class job.
As Mr Assange awoke from his first night in British custody, his lawyer, Mark Stephens, told The Australian the Townsville-born computer hacker had formally approached Australian consular officials in London and Sweden for help in fighting a Swedish extradition request over sexual assault allegations.
Describing Sweden as the US's "lickspittle state of choice", Mr Stephens said he feared the Swedish extradition order was merely a prelude to Mr Assange's ultimate removal to the US, where possession of 251,000 state department cables has caused a political uproar and calls for retribution.
"His Swedish lawyer has said explicitly to me that it would be quite unsafe for Julian in Sweden at this time," Mr Stephens said. "Not in terms of he would be harmed in Sweden, but that Sweden is not the end game."
The lawyer said he had asked the Australian high commission in London and Australia's embassy in Sweden for help in contesting the allegations against Mr Assange, which centre on the use or otherwise of a condom during consensual sex.
Mr Stephens said he had asked Australia to petition Swedish authorities for information about the allegations against Mr Assange and the evidence against him. He has also asked Australia to help him gain access to Mr Assange, who is due to reappear in a London court next Tuesday.
Mr Stephens said British prison authorities refused him access to Mr Assange until Monday, which did not leave him enough time to organise a defence.
Australian consular officials responded to Mr Assange's request for assistance on Tuesday. Consular staff attended his court hearing and were preparing to make regular visits to check on his welfare while being held in custody.
Mr Assange's defence team will be headed by high-profile Australian barrister Geoffrey Robertson QC, who flew back from Sydney on Tuesday.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates described Mr Assange's arrest as "good news".
Mr Assange faces two counts of sexual molestation, one count of unlawful coercion and one count of rape involving two women in Sweden in August. He has denied the allegations. He sat impassively through the hour-long hearing and merely blinked a few times when the judge announced that he was refusing bail.
But Mr Assange saw a glimmer of hope in his battle against the allegations yesterday, with senior district judge Howard Riddle saying he might be released from jail next week unless Swedish prosecutors produced evidence in London to back up their claims.
Current US ambassador Jeffrey Bleich yesterday moved quickly to defuse the controversy surrounding predecessor Robert McCallum's unflattering assessment of Mr Rudd, saying the
Foreign Minister was a good friend of the US and enjoyed the full confidence of the Obama administration.
"On a personal level we're good mates," Mr Bleich said. "You've seen us walking around the lake together - we have a little bromance - he's a very good person."
That message was reinforced in a personal phone call to Mr Rudd by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Mrs Clinton also issued a statement reaffirming her administration's commitment to the US-Australia relationship. It emphasised her gratitude to Mr Rudd for "leadership and vision" in helping guide the alliance.
Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop said the revelations backed up what the opposition had been saying about the government's handling of foreign policy, and Mr Rudd's suitability for the foreign portfolio. "These cables reveal a pattern of behaviour on the part of the government that is quite disturbing, arrogant and incompetent . . . making half-baked announcements without prior consultation with other nations," she said.
189 commentsIncrease
Elizabeth Cook's artist impression of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's appearance at Westminster Magistrates Court in London, where he was denied bail after appearing on an extradition warrant. Source: AP
WIKILEAKS deserves protection, not threats and attacks.
IN 1958 a young Rupert Murdoch, then owner and editor of Adelaide's The News, wrote: "In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win."
His observation perhaps reflected his father Keith Murdoch's expose that Australian troops were being needlessly sacrificed by incompetent British commanders on the shores of Gallipoli. The British tried to shut him up but Keith Murdoch would not be silenced and his efforts led to the termination of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.
Nearly a century later, WikiLeaks is also fearlessly publishing facts that need to be made public.
I grew up in a Queensland country town where people spoke their minds bluntly. They distrusted big government as something that could be corrupted if not watched carefully. The dark days of corruption in the Queensland government before the Fitzgerald inquiry are testimony to what happens when the politicians gag the media from reporting the truth.
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
Related CoverageWikiLeaks explained
Herald Sun, 4 hours ago
WikiLeaks live Q&A
The Australian, 9 hours ago
WikiLeaks boss vows to fight extradition
Adelaide Now, 12 hours ago
Assange: Don't shoot messenger
Adelaide Now, 1 day ago
WikiLeaks - the website that just won't die
Courier Mail, 1 day ago
.End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
These things have stayed with me. WikiLeaks was created around these core values. The idea, conceived in Australia, was to use internet technologies in new ways to report the truth.
WikiLeaks coined a new type of journalism: scientific journalism. We work with other media outlets to bring people the news, but also to prove it is true. Scientific journalism allows you to read a news story, then to click online to see the original document it is based on. That way you can judge for yourself: Is the story true? Did the journalist report it accurately?
Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that media. The media helps keep government honest. WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, and broken stories about corporate corruption.
People have said I am anti-war: for the record, I am not. Sometimes nations need to go to war, and there are just wars. But there is nothing more wrong than a government lying to its people about those wars, then asking these same citizens to put their lives and their taxes on the line for those lies. If a war is justified, then tell the truth and the people will decide whether to support it.
If you have read any of the Afghan or Iraq war logs, any of the US embassy cables or any of the stories about the things WikiLeaks has reported, consider how important it is for all media to be able to report these things freely.
WikiLeaks is not the only publisher of the US embassy cables. Other media outlets, including Britain's The Guardian, The New York Times, El Pais in Spain and Der Spiegel in Germany have published the same redacted cables.
Yet it is WikiLeaks, as the co-ordinator of these other groups, that has copped the most vicious attacks and accusations from the US government and its acolytes. I have been accused of treason, even though I am an Australian, not a US, citizen. There have been dozens of serious calls in the US for me to be "taken out" by US special forces. Sarah Palin says I should be "hunted down like Osama bin Laden", a Republican bill sits before the US Senate seeking to have me declared a "transnational threat" and disposed of accordingly. An adviser to the Canadian Prime Minister's office has called on national television for me to be assassinated. An American blogger has called for my 20-year-old son, here in Australia, to be kidnapped and harmed for no other reason than to get at me.
And Australians should observe with no pride the disgraceful pandering to these sentiments by Julia Gillard and her government. The powers of the Australian government appear to be fully at the disposal of the US as to whether to cancel my Australian passport, or to spy on or harass WikiLeaks supporters. The Australian Attorney-General is doing everything he can to help a US investigation clearly directed at framing Australian citizens and shipping them to the US.
Prime Minister Gillard and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have not had a word of criticism for the other media organisations. That is because The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel are old and large, while WikiLeaks is as yet young and small.
We are the underdogs. The Gillard government is trying to shoot the messenger because it doesn't want the truth revealed, including information about its own diplomatic and political dealings.
Has there been any response from the Australian government to the numerous public threats of violence against me and other WikiLeaks personnel? One might have thought an Australian prime minister would be defending her citizens against such things, but there have only been wholly unsubstantiated claims of illegality. The Prime Minister and especially the Attorney-General are meant to carry out their duties with dignity and above the fray. Rest assured, these two mean to save their own skins. They will not.
Every time WikiLeaks publishes the truth about abuses committed by US agencies, Australian politicians chant a provably false chorus with the State Department: "You'll risk lives! National security! You'll endanger troops!" Then they say there is nothing of importance in what WikiLeaks publishes. It can't be both. Which is it?
It is neither. WikiLeaks has a four-year publishing history. During that time we have changed whole governments, but not a single person, as far as anyone is aware, has been harmed. But the US, with Australian government connivance, has killed thousands in the past few months alone.
US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates admitted in a letter to the US congress that no sensitive intelligence sources or methods had been compromised by the Afghan war logs disclosure. The Pentagon stated there was no evidence the WikiLeaks reports had led to anyone being harmed in Afghanistan. NATO in Kabul told CNN it couldn't find a single person who needed protecting. The Australian Department of Defence said the same. No Australian troops or sources have been hurt by anything we have published.
But our publications have been far from unimportant. The US diplomatic cables reveal some startling facts:
► The US asked its diplomats to steal personal human material and information from UN officials and human rights groups, including DNA, fingerprints, iris scans, credit card numbers, internet passwords and ID photos, in violation of international treaties. Presumably Australian UN diplomats may be targeted, too.
► King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia asked the US to attack Iran.
► Officials in Jordan and Bahrain want Iran's nuclear program stopped by any means available.
► Britain's Iraq inquiry was fixed to protect "US interests".
► Sweden is a covert member of NATO and US intelligence sharing is kept from parliament.
► The US is playing hardball to get other countries to take freed detainees from Guantanamo Bay. Barack Obama agreed to meet the Slovenian President only if Slovenia took a prisoner. Our Pacific neighbour Kiribati was offered millions of dollars to accept detainees.
In its landmark ruling in the Pentagon Papers case, the US Supreme Court said "only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government". The swirling storm around WikiLeaks today reinforces the need to defend the right of all media to reveal the truth.
Julian Assange is the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks.
189 comments on this story
@@@
WikiLeaks outs Mark Arbib as US informant
• Paul Maley, Mark Dodd and Peter Wilson
• From: The Australian
• December 09, 2010 12:00AM
• FEDERAL Labor powerbroker Mark Arbib has been outed as a key source of intelligence on government and internal party machinations to the US embassy.
New embassy cables, released by WikiLeaks to Fairfax newspapers today, reveal the influential right-wing Labor MP has been one of the embassy's best ALP informants, along with former frontbencher Bob McMullan and current MP Michael Danby.
The documents say the Minister for Sport had been secretly offering details of Labor's inner workings even before his election to the Senate in 2007, dating back to his time as general secretary of the party's NSW branch from 2004.
Senator Arbib was one of the "faceless men" who was instrumental in the decision to oust Kevin Rudd and install Julia Gillard as Prime Minister in June.
The documents also identify Senator Arbib as a strong backer of the Australia-US alliance.
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
Julian Assange
Should Australia oppose any attempts to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the US?
Yes
No
Vote now
Related Coverage
• BACKFIRE: Gillard left to face backlash
• RUDD: US to blame for leaks
• LEGAL WRANGLING: Assange may be released
• ASSANGE: 'Elvis of the internet' cool in court
• FEATURE: Rudd revelations are old news
• JULIAN ASSANGE WRITES: Don't shoot the messenger
• IN DEPTH: WikiLeaks
• US launches bid to get hands on Assange Courier Mail, 6 hours ago
• It's 'political revenge' on Assange The Daily Telegraph, 6 hours ago
• Jailed Assange's glimmer of hope The Australian, 6 hours ago
• Storm brews as Assange held Herald Sun, 14 hours ago
• Assange poised to be Labor's Hicks The Australian, 16 hours ago
"He understands the importance of supporting a vibrant relationship with the US while not being too deferential. We have found him personable, confident and articulate," an embassy profile on Senator Arbib written in July last year says. "He has met with us repeatedly throughout his political rise."
The embarrassing revelations come as lawyers for whistleblower Julian Assange say the 39-year-old Australian will not be safe if he is sent to Sweden for trial because the "endgame" of US authorities is to move him there to be charged with espionage.
The US Justice Department is considering charging Mr Assange with espionage over the website's release of a mass of classified documents and Britain's The Independent newspaper said US and Swedish officials had already held informal discussions about the possibility of him being delivered into US custody.
Mr Assange was yesterday refused bail and sent to London's Wandsworth prison after appearing in a British court to answer a Swedish extradition application.
In the latest of a series of secret cables obtained by Mr Assange's WikiLeaks outfit, US officials reportedly described Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd as abrasive, impulsive and a "control freak" who insisted on micro-managing issues.
The cables, published in Fairfax newspapers, revealed how an initially favourable US response to Mr Rudd becoming prime minister quickly changed to strident criticism of his leadership style. Mr Rudd was dismissed in one US cable as a "mistake-prone control freak".
In a series of interviews yesterday, Mr Rudd dismissed the US criticism as "water off a duck's back" but was quick to blame lax US security rather than Mr Assange for the humiliating leaks.
"Mr Assange is not himself responsible for the unauthorised release of 250,000 documents from the US diplomatic communications network," Mr Rudd told Reuters news agency. "The Americans are responsible for that. I don't, frankly, give a damn about this sort of thing. Just get on with it."
Julia Gillard was quick to reaffirm her strong support for the beleaguered minister, saying he was doing a first-class job.
As Mr Assange awoke from his first night in British custody, his lawyer, Mark Stephens, told The Australian the Townsville-born computer hacker had formally approached Australian consular officials in London and Sweden for help in fighting a Swedish extradition request over sexual assault allegations.
Describing Sweden as the US's "lickspittle state of choice", Mr Stephens said he feared the Swedish extradition order was merely a prelude to Mr Assange's ultimate removal to the US, where possession of 251,000 state department cables has caused a political uproar and calls for retribution.
"His Swedish lawyer has said explicitly to me that it would be quite unsafe for Julian in Sweden at this time," Mr Stephens said. "Not in terms of he would be harmed in Sweden, but that Sweden is not the end game."
The lawyer said he had asked the Australian high commission in London and Australia's embassy in Sweden for help in contesting the allegations against Mr Assange, which centre on the use or otherwise of a condom during consensual sex.
Mr Stephens said he had asked Australia to petition Swedish authorities for information about the allegations against Mr Assange and the evidence against him. He has also asked Australia to help him gain access to Mr Assange, who is due to reappear in a London court next Tuesday.
Mr Stephens said British prison authorities refused him access to Mr Assange until Monday, which did not leave him enough time to organise a defence.
Australian consular officials responded to Mr Assange's request for assistance on Tuesday. Consular staff attended his court hearing and were preparing to make regular visits to check on his welfare while being held in custody.
Mr Assange's defence team will be headed by high-profile Australian barrister Geoffrey Robertson QC, who flew back from Sydney on Tuesday.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates described Mr Assange's arrest as "good news".
Mr Assange faces two counts of sexual molestation, one count of unlawful coercion and one count of rape involving two women in Sweden in August. He has denied the allegations. He sat impassively through the hour-long hearing and merely blinked a few times when the judge announced that he was refusing bail.
But Mr Assange saw a glimmer of hope in his battle against the allegations yesterday, with senior district judge Howard Riddle saying he might be released from jail next week unless Swedish prosecutors produced evidence in London to back up their claims.
Current US ambassador Jeffrey Bleich yesterday moved quickly to defuse the controversy surrounding predecessor Robert McCallum's unflattering assessment of Mr Rudd, saying the
Foreign Minister was a good friend of the US and enjoyed the full confidence of the Obama administration.
"On a personal level we're good mates," Mr Bleich said. "You've seen us walking around the lake together - we have a little bromance - he's a very good person."
That message was reinforced in a personal phone call to Mr Rudd by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Mrs Clinton also issued a statement reaffirming her administration's commitment to the US-Australia relationship. It emphasised her gratitude to Mr Rudd for "leadership and vision" in helping guide the alliance.
Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop said the revelations backed up what the opposition had been saying about the government's handling of foreign policy, and Mr Rudd's suitability for the foreign portfolio. "These cables reveal a pattern of behaviour on the part of the government that is quite disturbing, arrogant and incompetent . . . making half-baked announcements without prior consultation with other nations," she said.
@@@
Assange may be released
• Peter Wilson, Europe correspondent
• From: The Australian
• December 09, 2010 12:00AM
JULIAN Assange has received a glimmer of hope in his battle against sexual abuse allegations.
A British judge says the WikiLeaks founder may be released from jail next week unless Swedish prosecutors produce evidence in London to back up their allegations.
Senior district judge Howard Riddle said Swedish authorities would need to show some convincing evidence if they wanted to oppose bail for the 39-year-old Australian when he appears in court next Tuesday to oppose extradition to Sweden.
Mr Assange was yesterday refused bail and sent to Wandsworth prison when he appeared before Judge Riddle to answer a Swedish extradition application.
The internet activist's lawyers say if he stays in jail, it will be much harder for them to organise his defence against the Swedish sex charges and to stave off what they believe is a US government plan to charge him with espionage-related crimes over the publication of thousands of secret American cables.
Gemma Lindfield, the lawyer representing Swedish authorities at the initial extradition hearing in the City of Westminster Magistrates Court, said she believed the strength of the evidence over the sex charges was not relevant to the process of extraditing him under a European Arrest Warrant.
Judge Riddle disagreed, saying the four charges, including rape, were "extremely serious allegations (and) if they are false, he suffers a great injustice if he is remanded in custody".
The judge said he would "suggest" to Ms Lindfield that "if she is going to oppose bail in future", she would need to be armed with some substantial material to back up the allegations.
Mr Assange's lawyers, including Australian human rights barrister Geoffrey Robertson QC, are worried that if, as seems likely, he is handed over to Swedish custody, the US government would then mount its own extradition case to try to prosecute him over the release of the cables on his website rather than his personal life.
International Bar Association executive director Mark Ellis told the US press he believed the Obama administration would charge Mr Assange with espionage and seek his extradition from Sweden.
Sweden would agree to hand him over only if assured that the US would not seek the death penalty under treason charges, Mr Ellis said.
WikiLeaks overshadowed the sex case hearing, with four high-profile Britons who appeared in court to offer sureties of at least pound stg. 20,000 ($32,000) each in support of Mr Assange's bail application, saying they did not know him personally but were prepared to stand by him because of what they saw as the importance of his work with WikiLeaks.
Jemima Khan, an heiress and former wife of Pakistan cricket great Imran Khan, said Mr Assange was a champion of free speech, while film director Ken Loach said "the work he has done has been a public service".
"I think we are entitled to know the dealings of those that govern us," Loach said.
Australian journalist John Pilger said he knew Mr Assange personally and believed the Swedish allegations were "a travesty" of justice motivated by a desire to silence Mr Assange.
The judge said the extradition case was not about WikiLeaks and ruled that Mr Assange was too much of a "flight risk" to grant bail, partly because the Australian citizen did not have strong links to Britain.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates welcomed news of the arrest, saying it "sounds like good news" and made it clear that Washington wanted to lay its own charges over Mr Assange's publication of secret US government cables.
Attorney-General Eric Holder said the US Justice Department was working hard to develop legal avenues for prosecuting Mr Assange and his organisation.
Government lawyers were running "a very serious, active, ongoing investigation that is criminal in nature", Mr Holder said.
One option would be to use a federal law dealing with theft of government property, which makes it a crime to receive or keep any material that has clearly been stolen.
WikiLeaks has published thousands of leaked US military and diplomatic cables, and continued to publish new material after Mr Assange's arrest.
Just hours after he was refused bail, the website released embarrassing US cables that suggested Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had bullied British politicians into releasing convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi from prison in Scotland.
Mr Assange faces two counts of sexual molestation, one count of unlawful coercion and one count of rape involving two women in Sweden in August. He has denied the allegations.
He sat impassively through the hour-long hearing and merely blinked a few times when the judge said he was refusing bail.
Despite the Australian government's strident criticism of WikiLeaks and Mr Assange, two diplomats from the high commission in London were also in the courtroom to provide consular support to Mr Assange.
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WikiLeaks acts may be criminal: McClelland
By Stephen Johnson, AAP
December 9, 2010, 6:36 pm 25 Comments
AFP © Enlarge photo
The Australian government has suggested WikiLeaks has engaged in criminal activity as the actions of another Labor minister were detailed in leaked diplomatic cables.
Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland said on Thursday the "unauthorised obtaining" of classified US files might, in itself, have been an offence.
"Certainly to release that sort of information by an officer of the commonwealth, if it were Australian material, would in my view certainly involve criminality," Mr McClelland told a book launch in Sydney.
The legal interpretation came as WikiLeaks supplied Fairfax newspapers with information revealing how Labor powerbroker Mark Arbib gave US officials inside knowledge about former prime minister Kevin Rudd's bid to contain the leadership ambitions of his eventual successor, Julia Gillard.
In October 2009, Senator Arbib told US diplomats Mr Rudd wanted to "ensure that there are viable alternatives to Gillard within the Labor Party to forestall a challenge".
The publication came a day after WikiLeaks released cables suggesting Mr Rudd had been a "control freak" leader.
Senator Arbib, who is now minister for sport, released a statement on Thursday defending his active membership of the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue.
"I am publicly known as a strong supporter of Australia's relationship with the United States," he said.
"I, like many members of the federal parliament, have regular discussions about the state of Australian and US politics with members of the US mission and consulate."
Treasurer Wayne Swan, who became acting prime minister on Thursday when Ms Gillard began a vacation, downplayed the contents of the WikiLeaks material on Senator Arbib.
"We ought to exercise just a degree of caution when we're interpreting the translation of conversations," Mr Swan told reporters in Brisbane on Thursday.
"It doesn't mean that the reportage of them in the cables is accurate, it doesn't mean to say it's well grounded, and it certainly doesn't mean to say it's in context."
With WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange now in custody in London, awaiting deportation to Sweden on rape charges, federal independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused Ms Gillard of showing contempt for the rule of law.
"I'm absolutely disgusted at the behaviour of the federal government and of the prime minister personally at the moment," the former whistleblower told reporters in Hobart on Thursday.
"The prime minister is showing a contempt for the rule of law the way she has ruled out the presumption of innocence."
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott echoed those sentiments.
"I guess even people who've done the wrong thing have to be given the benefit of the doubt, the presumption of innocence, and there doesn't appear to have been an enormous amount of that from the government," Mr Abbott told Darwin radio.
Independent MP Rob Oakeshott said Mr Assange deserved the Australian government's support as he faced the Swedish legal system.
Activist group GetUp is buying advertisements in The New York Times and The Washington Times newspapers defending WikiLeaks.
Australian Human Rights Commission president Catherine Branson said the Australian government shouldn't take any steps against a citizen facing criminal charges.
"Like every Australian citizen, if he calls on consular assistance he should be provided with it, that is his right," the former federal court judge told AAP.
Griffith University law professor AJ Brown told a whistleblowers' forum in Sydney on Thursday night politicians had created a martyr out of Mr Assange.
The comments come as protesters prepared to rally in support of Mr Assange in Brisbane on Friday.
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Assange may be released
• Peter Wilson, Europe correspondent
• From: The Australian
• December 09, 2010 12:00AM
JULIAN Assange has received a glimmer of hope in his battle against sexual abuse allegations.
A British judge says the WikiLeaks founder may be released from jail next week unless Swedish prosecutors produce evidence in London to back up their allegations.
Senior district judge Howard Riddle said Swedish authorities would need to show some convincing evidence if they wanted to oppose bail for the 39-year-old Australian when he appears in court next Tuesday to oppose extradition to Sweden.
Mr Assange was yesterday refused bail and sent to Wandsworth prison when he appeared before Judge Riddle to answer a Swedish extradition application.
The internet activist's lawyers say if he stays in jail, it will be much harder for them to organise his defence against the Swedish sex charges and to stave off what they believe is a US government plan to charge him with espionage-related crimes over the publication of thousands of secret American cables.
Gemma Lindfield, the lawyer representing Swedish authorities at the initial extradition hearing in the City of Westminster Magistrates Court, said she believed the strength of the evidence over the sex charges was not relevant to the process of extraditing him under a European Arrest Warrant.
Judge Riddle disagreed, saying the four charges, including rape, were "extremely serious allegations (and) if they are false, he suffers a great injustice if he is remanded in custody".
The judge said he would "suggest" to Ms Lindfield that "if she is going to oppose bail in future", she would need to be armed with some substantial material to back up the allegations.
Mr Assange's lawyers, including Australian human rights barrister Geoffrey Robertson QC, are worried that if, as seems likely, he is handed over to Swedish custody, the US government would then mount its own extradition case to try to prosecute him over the release of the cables on his website rather than his personal life.
International Bar Association executive director Mark Ellis told the US press he believed the Obama administration would charge Mr Assange with espionage and seek his extradition from Sweden.
Sweden would agree to hand him over only if assured that the US would not seek the death penalty under treason charges, Mr Ellis said.
WikiLeaks overshadowed the sex case hearing, with four high-profile Britons who appeared in court to offer sureties of at least pound stg. 20,000 ($32,000) each in support of Mr Assange's bail application, saying they did not know him personally but were prepared to stand by him because of what they saw as the importance of his work with WikiLeaks.
Jemima Khan, an heiress and former wife of Pakistan cricket great Imran Khan, said Mr Assange was a champion of free speech, while film director Ken Loach said "the work he has done has been a public service".
"I think we are entitled to know the dealings of those that govern us," Loach said.
Australian journalist John Pilger said he knew Mr Assange personally and believed the Swedish allegations were "a travesty" of justice motivated by a desire to silence Mr Assange.
The judge said the extradition case was not about WikiLeaks and ruled that Mr Assange was too much of a "flight risk" to grant bail, partly because the Australian citizen did not have strong links to Britain.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates welcomed news of the arrest, saying it "sounds like good news" and made it clear that Washington wanted to lay its own charges over Mr Assange's publication of secret US government cables.
Attorney-General Eric Holder said the US Justice Department was working hard to develop legal avenues for prosecuting Mr Assange and his organisation.
Government lawyers were running "a very serious, active, ongoing investigation that is criminal in nature", Mr Holder said.
One option would be to use a federal law dealing with theft of government property, which makes it a crime to receive or keep any material that has clearly been stolen.
WikiLeaks has published thousands of leaked US military and diplomatic cables, and continued to publish new material after Mr Assange's arrest.
Just hours after he was refused bail, the website released embarrassing US cables that suggested Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had bullied British politicians into releasing convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi from prison in Scotland.
Mr Assange faces two counts of sexual molestation, one count of unlawful coercion and one count of rape involving two women in Sweden in August. He has denied the allegations.
He sat impassively through the hour-long hearing and merely blinked a few times when the judge said he was refusing bail.
Despite the Australian government's strident criticism of WikiLeaks and Mr Assange, two diplomats from the high commission in London were also in the courtroom to provide consular support to Mr Assange.
@@@
WikiLeaks acts may be criminal: McClelland
By Stephen Johnson, AAP
December 9, 2010, 6:36 pm 25 Comments
AFP © Enlarge photo
The Australian government has suggested WikiLeaks has engaged in criminal activity as the actions of another Labor minister were detailed in leaked diplomatic cables.
Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland said on Thursday the "unauthorised obtaining" of classified US files might, in itself, have been an offence.
"Certainly to release that sort of information by an officer of the commonwealth, if it were Australian material, would in my view certainly involve criminality," Mr McClelland told a book launch in Sydney.
The legal interpretation came as WikiLeaks supplied Fairfax newspapers with information revealing how Labor powerbroker Mark Arbib gave US officials inside knowledge about former prime minister Kevin Rudd's bid to contain the leadership ambitions of his eventual successor, Julia Gillard.
In October 2009, Senator Arbib told US diplomats Mr Rudd wanted to "ensure that there are viable alternatives to Gillard within the Labor Party to forestall a challenge".
The publication came a day after WikiLeaks released cables suggesting Mr Rudd had been a "control freak" leader.
Senator Arbib, who is now minister for sport, released a statement on Thursday defending his active membership of the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue.
"I am publicly known as a strong supporter of Australia's relationship with the United States," he said.
"I, like many members of the federal parliament, have regular discussions about the state of Australian and US politics with members of the US mission and consulate."
Treasurer Wayne Swan, who became acting prime minister on Thursday when Ms Gillard began a vacation, downplayed the contents of the WikiLeaks material on Senator Arbib.
"We ought to exercise just a degree of caution when we're interpreting the translation of conversations," Mr Swan told reporters in Brisbane on Thursday.
"It doesn't mean that the reportage of them in the cables is accurate, it doesn't mean to say it's well grounded, and it certainly doesn't mean to say it's in context."
With WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange now in custody in London, awaiting deportation to Sweden on rape charges, federal independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused Ms Gillard of showing contempt for the rule of law.
"I'm absolutely disgusted at the behaviour of the federal government and of the prime minister personally at the moment," the former whistleblower told reporters in Hobart on Thursday.
"The prime minister is showing a contempt for the rule of law the way she has ruled out the presumption of innocence."
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott echoed those sentiments.
"I guess even people who've done the wrong thing have to be given the benefit of the doubt, the presumption of innocence, and there doesn't appear to have been an enormous amount of that from the government," Mr Abbott told Darwin radio.
Independent MP Rob Oakeshott said Mr Assange deserved the Australian government's support as he faced the Swedish legal system.
Activist group GetUp is buying advertisements in The New York Times and The Washington Times newspapers defending WikiLeaks.
Australian Human Rights Commission president Catherine Branson said the Australian government shouldn't take any steps against a citizen facing criminal charges.
"Like every Australian citizen, if he calls on consular assistance he should be provided with it, that is his right," the former federal court judge told AAP.
Griffith University law professor AJ Brown told a whistleblowers' forum in Sydney on Thursday night politicians had created a martyr out of Mr Assange.
The comments come as protesters prepared to rally in support of Mr Assange in Brisbane on Friday.
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Hundreds rally for WikiLeaks founderSteve Gray, AAP
December 9, 2010, 9:15 pm 30 Comments
Many of the 250 people who gathered in central Brisbane on Thursday evening brandished masks of the WikiLeaks founder currently held in a British prison, claiming "we are all Julian Assange".
Mr Assange is under arrest, facing extradition to Sweden on sex charges after publishing leaked documents on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and 250,000 US diplomatic cables that have embarrassed governments around the world.
A message from Britain-based Australian journalist John Pilger was read to the crowd in support of the demonstration.
"The defence of Julian Assange is one of the most important issues of my lifetime," Mr Pilger's message said.
Mr Pilger and speakers at the rally described Mr Assange's arrest on sex charges as a stunt to silence him.
Rally organiser Jessica Payne called on Australians to stand up for free speech.
"We're here to defend WikiLeaks, to defend our right to freedom of information, to defend our right to know what our elected representatives are up to," Ms Payne said.
"We are all Assange, and if they want to take down Assange, they have to take down all of us."
Former Australian Democrats senator and now Greens member Andrew Bartlett said Mr Assange deserves the rule of law, as do the women who have levelled serious charges against him.
"What is important is that those charges are dealt with according to the rule of law, that they are not dealt with according to political pressure," Mr Bartlett said.
"WikiLeaks is about a lot more that Julian Assange," he said.
He said WikiLeaks laid bare the workings of government and was being subjected to appalling bullying as pressure was brought to bear to shut it down.
Queensland Council for Civil Liberties president Michael Cope said the Australian government was willing to ignore the right of its citizens to curry favour with the US.
"It's entirely inappropriate that people be extradited simply to be questioned as appears to be happening in this case," Mr Cope said.
He said the basic issue was the right to freedom of speech.
Mr Cope said government attempted to restrict that freedom "to protect themselves from being exposed to their dishonesty, their corruption and their mistakes".
About 200 of the protesters later marched through the CBD chanting slogans in support of Mr Assange.
Organisers have promised a bigger demonstration in Brisbane at lunchtime on Friday to coincide with International Human Rights Day.
It will be addressed by lawyer Peter Russo, who defended Indian doctor Dr Mohamed Haneef against charges of involvement in terrorism.
Organisers say American dissident Noam Chomsky has also provided a message of support.
The rally will be held outside the Department of Foreign Affairs offices in Ann Street at noon (AEST).
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