Assange backers battle to
keep £140,000 in sureties

The Wikileaks founder has been holed up at the Ecuadorian Embassy since June 19, a move which has already lost celebrity backers £200,000 they gave for his bail.

During a half-hour hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court yesterday, supporters of 41-year-old Assange were told a decision will be made in “a few days”.

Vaughan Smith, a friend who put Assange up at his country mansion for more than a year, addressed the court on behalf of the nine who put up £140,000 between them.

He said all those who offered sureties, of varying amounts, are “convinced that they have done and are doing the right thing”.

Arguing why they should not lose their money, he told Chief Magistrate Howard Riddle: “We don’t see how justice is served by punishing us for having done our best to serve the public interest in this complex and challenging case.

“We submit that the sureties are wholly blameless, that we have worked assiduously to help Mr Assange to meet the requirements of the court.

“We all want Mr Assange to be able to clear his name and have done everything with our diminishing influence to see the current impasse resolved and justice served.”

Former Army officer Mr Smith put £20,000 towards the surety.

The other eight backers are retired professor Tricia David, Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sir John Sulston, journalist Philip Knightley, Lady Caroline Evans, friend Sarah Saunders, Joseph Farrell, Sarah Harrison and Tracy Worcester.

Mr Smith said the group agreed they would not try to make Assange leave the embassy because that would make them “mercenary and contemptible individuals”.

He told the court: “We never envisaged when we agreed to become sureties that the matter would become a diplomatic argument and it is clear that this needs to be resolved at a governmental level.”