'Hand yourself in, Assange told', The Times

Thursday, December 23, 2010

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Stop dragging WikiLeaks down and hand yourself in, Assange told
By James Silver, Alexi Mostrous

One of Julian Assange’s key supporters accused him yesterday of “dragging WikiLeaks down with him” and urged him to give himself up to the Swedish authorities.

Peter Sunde, co-founder of the file-sharing website Pirate Bay, said that the media spotlight on Mr Assange, who is wanted in Sweden over alleged sexual offences, was taking attention away from WikiLeaks.

Mr Assange, who is responsible for the release of hundreds of secret diplomatic cables, cannot afford to ignore Mr Sunde’s comments as his micropayments website, Flattr.com, is an important source of funding for WikiLeaks.

To date, WikiLeaks has received 5,321 small donations of up to €10 through Flattr. Mr Sunde would not give a total but donations have increased tenfold since Mastercard and Visa cut ties with WikiLeaks this month. He told The Times: “I think it’s very important that Julian Assange comes to Sweden and has his trial in Sweden to show if he’s guilty or innocent. At the moment he’s dragging WikiLeaks down with him.

“There’s been far too much focus on Julian as an individual, which distracts the world from WikiLeaks, which has a far higher purpose than one person.”

In an interview with The Times on Monday, Mr Assange said that he would not be “at the beck and call of any prosecutor in the world”.

Speaking from the Suffolk house where he is confined on bail, the 39-year-old Australian maintained that prosecutors had had six weeks to speak to him while he was in Sweden after the alleged incidents took place. He predicted that Sweden would “probably” drop the case “as a result of careful scrutiny”.

Mr Assange also said that he was receiving death threats, which had “increased substantially” in the days after his release from prison. “The calibre of those making those death threats has also increased. They have been made on the phone to my lawyers, in public and to my children.

“I do feel fear but I can control it with my mind. It never gets to the level where I’m panicky.”

If Mr Assange were to be extradited to Sweden, Mr Sunde warned that British government websites would face attack from hackers. An online group called Anonymous has already made cyber-attacks on websites belonging to Mastercard, Visa, PayPal and Amazon.

“I don’t want to even think about the consequences [of extradition] because they could be very, very bad,” said Mr Sunde, 32, a Finnish-Norwegian, who denied any personal involvement with Anonymous.

The group should not be underestimated, he said. “They are a very powerful force. Since there are very few people who can stop them, they can do basically whatever they want.”
He said that although he did not support their actions, he understood what motivated them. “They are angry because they think the internet is not a democratic place. If we want to stop them we need to take away their cause by making sure the internet is a true democracy. It isn’t at the moment.”

Last month Mr Sunde lost an appeal, with fellow Pirate Bay founders, for illegally sharing copyrighted content. Despite facing an eight-month jail sentence and combined fine of 46 million krona (£4.1 million), he said that he still expected to emerge victorious.

(The Times, 23rd December 2010)

Posted by James Silver - On Thursday, December 23, 2010

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