Fugitive Julian Assange ‘considers himself above the law’: judge

A UK judge has dashed Julian Assange's hopes of throwing out an arrest warrant against him, scolding the Wikileaks editor for considering himself "above the law" and "wanting justice only if it goes in his favour".

In the Westminster Magistrates Court, Judge Emma Arbuthnot also heavily criticised a 2015 ruling by a United Nations panel that said Assange was under arbitrary detention in Ecuador's London embassy where he sought asylum in 2012 and has stayed ever since.

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The founder of Wikileaks lost one legal bid to have a UK arrest warrant against him quashed but launched another, to have the British authorities halt any action against him on public interest grounds.

She said Assange had been treated according to the law but has failed to attend court and has thwarted the course of justice by refusing to fully cooperate with a Swedish investigation into rape allegations.

Arbuthnot added Assange was in relatively good health despite a tooth infection, a frozen shoulder and depression.

Defendants on bail up and down the country, and requested persons facing extradition, come to court to face the consequences of their own choices. He should have the courage to do so too, she said.

Arbuthnot was weighing the public interest in pursuing Assange for refusing to surrender to police while on bail.

It is a criminal offence for someone on bail to refuse to surrender to police without reasonable cause - and Assange refused to leave the embassy despite a court order for his arrest after an extradition order to Sweden was upheld on appeal in 2012.

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But Assanges lawyer Mark Summers QC had argued that the arrest warrant should be dropped because it was not in the interests of justice and proportionality to bring an action against Assange.

He said Assange had already undergone enough punishment as a result of staying in the small embassy for more than five years.

Arbuthnot accepted that Assange has a serious tooth problem and is in need of dental treatment and needs an MRI scan on a shoulder which has been described as frozen, and that he has depression and suffers respiratory infections.

However Mr Assanges health problems could be much worse, she said.

In December 2015, the United Nations Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) ruled that Assange was subject to arbitrary detention, in breach of his human rights.

They held that he had been denied due process and a fair trial while he was in Wandsworth Prison, then during 550 days under house arrest, while he was appealing against his extradition to Sweden. They said the deprivation of his liberty continued while he was in the embassy.

However Arbuthnot said the WGAD had based its conclusions on some misunderstandings and the restrictions on Assanges freedom had been according to law and proportionate.

She said there was a distinction between Wandsworth prison and living in the embassy - he could leave whenever he wishes, he is free to receive it would seem an unlimited number of unsupervised visits, he can choose the food he eatsand the time he sleeps and exercises, he can sit on the balcony to take the air, and he is free to use a computer and mobile phone.

I suspect if one were to ask one of the men incarcerated in Wandsworth Prison whether conditions in the Ecuadorian Embassy were akin to a remand in custody, the prisoner would dispute the Working Groups assertion, Arbuthnot said.

His house arrest had been proposed by his own legal team, including leading human rights specialist Geoffrey Robertson QC.

The court - rightly as it turned out - had a fear Mr Assange would not surrender himself to the court and to ensure his attendance the conditions suggested by his lawyers were put in place.

Assanges lawyers had argued he had good reason to fear rendition - rather than extradition - to the US where some officials were calling for the death penalty.

I do not find that Mr Assanges fears were reasonable, Arbuthnot said. I do not accept that Sweden would have rendered Mr Assange to the United States. If that had happened there would have been a diplomatic crisis.

If, instead, the US had requested Assanges extradition, he could challenge it by arguing that he would not receive a fair trial or proper conditions of detention.

Assanges team also relied on an exchange of emails uncovered by an investigative journalist, in which a lawyer with the Crown Prosecution Service in the UK argued that Sweden should keep trying to arrest Assange.

Arbuthnot said she could not determine whether the lawyer had acted inappropriately, and it was too speculative to argue it had made a difference to the case.

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Fugitive Julian Assange 'considers himself above the law': judge