UN ruling a vindication: Assange
By Lloyd Jones, AAP London Correspondent
February 6, 2016, 5:29 am
UN ruling a vindication: Assange
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says a UN panel's ruling that the UK and Sweden caused his "arbitrary detention" vindicates him and he must be allowed to go free.
But the 44-year-old Australian is likely to remain holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London after both the UK and Swedish governments rejected the ruling.
On Friday he made a rare appearance on an embassy balcony to tell supporters he had won a "sweet victory".
Assange sought asylum in the embassy in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face sexual assault allegations.
He also says he fears being sent to the US to face an espionage case over WikiLeaks' release of top secret military and diplomatic documents.
"We have today a really significant victory that has brought a smile to my face and I hope to many others as well," Assange told reporters by video link from the embassy.
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention earlier released a ruling urging the UK and Swedish governments to allow him to go free without fear of arrest and afford him the right of compensation over his "deprivation of liberty".
But both governments rejected the ruling, saying Assange was in the embassy voluntarily and must still face justice in Sweden.
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond labelled the report "ridiculous" and said the former computer hacker was a "fugitive from justice".
"It's a group made up of lay people, not lawyers, and their conclusion is flawed in law," he said of the UN panel.
The Swedish Prosecution Authority said the UN report had "no formal impact" on its ongoing investigation.
Assange told Friday's press conference: "I consider the outcome in this case to be vindication."
The UN panel found he had been unlawfully detained for five and a half years, including a short stay in a London prison, then house arrest then three and a half years in the embassy.
But in a dissenting opinion panel member Vladimir Tochilovsky said Assange's situation did not amount to detention and that the ruling raised serious questions about the scope of the panel's mandate.
Assange said that if the UK and Sweden undermined the UN system by rejecting the ruling they risked facing "consequences" from the international community.
He later addressed a small crowd of supporters from an embassy balcony, saying he had won a "sweet victory" as he held up a copy of the UN report.
"What right do the governments of the US, UK or Sweden have to deny my children their father for five and a half years," he said to cheers.
He said it was time his children had their father back and "that will happen, one way or another."
Melinda Taylor, one of Assange's legal team, said the UK and Sweden had ratified the conventions under which the UN panel worked so they should accept its result "unless they want to join the kind of rogue nations that don't accept the United Nations".
But the lawyer for the Swedish woman Assange is accused of raping said the UN panel had "a lack of understanding" that rape "is one of the most serious abuses and violations of human rights."
Elisabeth Massi Fritz said it was "insulting and offensive" to her client to suggest a rape suspect should be compensated for withholding himself from justice for more than five years.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said she was seeking legal advice on the UN report's implications for Assange as an Australian citizen.
She was in London on Thursday and met Assange's Australian lawyer Jennifer Robinson, who asked that the Australian government release her client's passport or issue a new one and take steps to help negotiate a resolution of the case.
AAP
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