Assange: The Fugitive in Custody

The decision by the Ecuadorian government to end Julian Assange’s diplomatic immunity and the Australian’s arrest by the Metropolitan Police is not the end of the WikiLeaks saga – but it certainly seems to be the beginning of the end for the man himself. Assange faces a charge of skipping bail, but his extradition for “computer-related offences” has been requested by the United States, while sources in Sweden suggest that the sexual assault charges against him, which had lapsed, may be revived now that he is in custody. The writing is surely on the wall.

Of course, the WikiLeaks machine has swung into action to issue its howls of protest. It has tweeted that the termination of Assange’s immunity is “in violation of international law” and claimed that “powerful actors, including CIA, are engaged in a sophisticated effort to dehumanise, delegitimize and imprison him”. His celebrity supporter, Pamela Anderson, has called his arrest “a vile injustice” which proves that Assange’s fears of extradition to the US were “right all along”.

Some people may not find this very convincing. They may, like me, be disinclined to place much weight on the political and legal opinions of a former Playboy model and the campaigning group which Assange helped to establish. They may instead prefer to listen to the arguments and advice of the President of Ecuador, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the Foreign Secretary and the Home Secretary. Let’s look at this in two parts.

First, the decision to withdraw Assange’s immunity, is simple: it is against the law to engage in political activities while seeking asylum, yet it is fairly clear that “political activities” are exactly what have been filling this Antipodean oddball’s days during his lengthy residence. The leaking of private documents from the Vatican back in January gives a pretty clear indication that Assange continues his campaigning role, as do his long-running disputes about security and internet access with his Ecuadorian hosts. So letting the Met in to arrest him was, I think, the right thing to do.

The second point is a wider one: what will happen to Assange now? The offence for which he is appearing in front of a magistrate in Westminster is failing to surrender himself to police, but it is obvious that the more serious charges are likely to be rape, if the Swedish courts allow these to be revived, and extradition to the US for computer offences. The Ecuadorian government claims that their British counterparts have assured them that Assange will not be extradited anywhere where he might face torture or the death penalty, but, if convicted, he is still looking at serious jail time, certainly in the US and possibly in Sweden too.

WikiLeaks will survive, of course. Organisations like this – high-minded and selfish campaigning groups convinced of their own righteousness – always do. After all, Assange has been in hiding (admittedly in plain sight) in the embassy since 2012, and I certainly don’t think that the profile of the organisation has declined from negligence. But we are entitled to ask an even bigger question: has WikiLeaks done any good? My view is that they’ve done considerable damage to the cause of freedom and open government.

It is certainly true that governments as well as private corporations have a need to conduct some of their business in private. In this regard, it is inevitable that their paths and swords will cross at some point, with journalists as eager to know all their secrets as much as the governments and businesses and keen to stop them becoming common knowledge. In many ways, too, this is a good and noble motivation. But there also exists a devil-may-care desire to put everything out in the open by some sections of opinion, and every society must have its secrets.

To my mind, there is no doubt at all that Assange and his WikiLeaks disciples have put diplomatic relationships – and worse, lives – at risk with their starry-eyed, naïf approach to openness. Chelsea Manning was sentenced to 35 years’ imprisonment for her part in revealing US state secrets (she has now been released), and Assange is surely likely to face jail time himself if extradited. That, surely, has to be right: not only has be compromised the security of the states whose information he has sprayed around like so much confetti, he has also set back the cause of responsible and dedicated whistleblowers who wrestle with their consciences before revealing any information. I don’t think Assange is much of a wrestler.

When the history of this saga comes to be written, I don’t think it will be a tale of one brave man’s stand against the might of the United States in support of the cause of freedom and openness. It will, instead, be a rather tawdry tale of squalid secrets squandered, lives and interests endangered, and all of this sacrificed on the altar of Assange’s ego. The birds of justice have come home to roost. It is time for Julian Assange to answer for the crimes of which he is accused, which are not all, remember, political in nature, but some deeply personal and sour-tasting. Let the law take its course, because that, after all, is what makes us a free society.