Category: Justice

{Pictured above, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange speaking to the media inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London}

{{A Swedish court will hold a public hearing on Wednesday to determine if an arrest warrant against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for alleged sexual assault should be dropped.}}

A decision to cancel the warrant would be a step towards enabling the 43-year-old Australian to walk out of the Ecuadoran embassy in London, where he has been holed up for the past two years in a bid to avoid extradition to Sweden.

The Stockholm District Court will open at 1100 GMT to review the arrest warrant, issued in late 2010, for incidents of rape and sexual molestation that allegedly took place that year – claims Assange denies.

Assange sought refuge in Ecuador’s embassy in Britain in June 2012 after having exhausted all legal options at British courts to avoid being extradited to Sweden.

He has said he fears that being sent to Sweden would be a pretext for transferring him to the United States, where WikiLeaks sparked an uproar with its publication of thousands of secret documents.

WikiLeaks repeatedly drove the global news agenda with startling revelations of the behind-the-scenes activities of governments around the world.

From confidential assessments by US diplomats of Chinese leaders to revised body counts in Iraq, the WikiLeaks documents provided the public with an unprecedented look under the hood of international politics.

{agencies}

{{The head of the European Commission has told the EU’s top court that the entire Commission’s reputation was at stake when a Maltese member of his team was found to have acted improperly.}}

Jose Manuel Barroso was defending his treatment of ex-Health Commissioner John Dalli, who left his job in 2012.

Mr Dalli had been accused of improper links to tobacco lobbyists.

Mr Barroso told the EU Court of Justice that he had little choice but to tell Mr Dalli to go.

The former health commissioner told the judges in Luxembourg that his resignation amounted to a dismissal and that he had been treated unfairly by Mr Barroso.

“It was not a meeting, it was an ambush,” Mr Dalli said, referring to a key meeting with Mr Barroso on 16 October 2012. That was when Mr Barroso read out allegations against him contained in a secret report by EU anti-fraud agency Olaf.

“The facts were manipulated. I did nothing wrong,” Mr Dalli told the court, alleging that the presumption of innocence had been violated and that he had been denied sufficient time to argue his case.

Mr Dalli is demanding compensation from the Commission for loss of earnings. In his plea to the court he also wants an annulment of Mr Barroso’s request for his resignation and a symbolic award of one euro (£0.80; $1.4) in damages for the reputational harm he says he has suffered.

{{John Dalli categorically rejected the EU anti-fraud body’s findings}}

According to Olaf, a Maltese businessman friend of Mr Dalli had sought a “considerable” payment from a Swedish producer of oral tobacco, called snus. Under the proposal. Mr Dalli would then lift an EU ban on the product. Currently only Sweden has an exemption from the ban.

Olaf said it had “unambiguous and converging circumstantial pieces of evidence” that Mr Dalli knew of the alleged bribery attempt by businessman Silvio Zammit.

In his statement as a witness in the case Mr Barroso said: “I told Mr Dalli it would be better for him to resign on his own initiative, to clear his name.

“If he did not follow that path, I told him that as president of the Commission, I would have to ask him to resign in keeping with Article 17 (6) of the Treaty.”

He accused Mr Dalli of having had “strange contacts” with the tobacco industry “outside the Commission – many thousands of kilometres outside – without any officials being present”.

wirestory

{{Malaysia asked New Zealand to drop an attempted rape case against one of its diplomats in Wellington, promising he would never return to the country, according to documents released on Wednesday.}}

Defence staff assistant Muhammad Rizalman Ismail appeared in a New Zealand court on 10 May accused of stalking a 21-year-old woman the previous night and attacking her at her home in the same Wellington suburb where Malaysia’s High Commission is located.

Police charged him with burglary and assault with intent to commit rape – both offences that carry jail terms of up to 10 years – but he escaped prosecution after invoking diplomatic immunity and returning to his homeland.

The case has caused uproar in New Zealand, with the government facing criticism for failing to ensure he stood trial.

In an unusual move, the government released correspondence between foreign affairs officials and the Malaysian High Commission in which the diplomatic mission refuses to waive immunity and asks that the charges be dropped and the matter kept quiet.

“The High Commission of Malaysia would like to also seek the co-operation of the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the New Zealand police to kindly consider sealing all documentations pertaining to the above mentioned matter and withdrawing all charges against Mr Muhammad Rizalman Ismail,” a letter from the High Commission says.

It adds: “The government of Malaysia will ensure that Mr Muhammad Rizalman Ismail does not return to New Zealand in the future.”

Muhammad Rizalman is now set to face a military court martial in Malaysia but New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said he still felt he should be in the dock in the country where the alleged offences took place.

“There is absolutely no question in my mind that this individual should be tried through the New Zealand system and face his penalties, if he is found guilty, in New Zealand,” he told reporters.

Key said publicity surrounding the case would ensure it was dealt with properly in Malaysia.

“Given the high profile of the situation, I’m absolutely sure that they’ll now go through a proper process,” he said.

“The individual is a military person so there’s a court martial, let alone criminal proceedings, so let’s see how that all plays out.”

Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said Kuala Lumpur had offered to waive immunity in the case and it would be treated seriously by authorities in Malaysia.

“Diplomatic immunity is not a licence for Malaysian diplomats to commit crimes overseas,” he told broadcaster TVNZ.

“I take this very seriously as a foreign minister, especially in friendly countries like New Zealand.”

– AFP