WikiLeaks founder risks 'denial of justice': lawyer

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange risks a "flagrant denial of justice" if he is sent back to Sweden from England to face sex crimes allegations, his lawyer argued Monday, the first day of a two-day extradition hearing.

Geoffrey Robertson said at a hearing in Belmarsh Magistrates' Court in London, England, thata trial behind closed doors would be "a flagrant denial of justice ... blatantly unfair, not only by British standards but by European standards and indeed by international standards," he said.

"You cannot have a fair trial where the press and the public are excluded from the court," Robertson said.

Assange is accused of sexual misconduct by two women he met during a visit to Stockholm last year. Rape cases are typically held in private in Sweden to protect the identities of the alleged victims.

"For five-and-a-half months there's been a black box applied to my life," Assange told reporters as he left court Monday. "And on the outside of the black box has been written the word rape. Thanks to an open court process, that box is now being opened over the next day, you'll see that that box is in fact empty and has nothing to do with the word on the outside of it."

Defence lawyers argue that he should not be extradited because he has not been charged with a crime and is only wanted for questioning, because of flaws in the Swedish prosecutors' case and because a ticket to Sweden could eventually land him in Guantanamo Bay or on U.S. death row.

Clare Montgomery, the prosecutor representing Sweden, opened Monday by dismissing several key planks of the defence.

She also said the rape allegation was an extraditable offence even under Sweden's broad definition of the crime.

Assange's lawyers say he cannot be extradited because he has not been charged with a crime in Sweden and is only wanted for questioning and that the allegation is not rape as understood under European and English law.

"The Swedish offence of rape contains the core element of rape ... the deliberate violation of a woman's sexual integrity through penetration,"Montgomery said.

American officials are trying to build a criminal case against WikiLeaks, which has angered Washington by publishing a trove of leaked diplomatic cables and secret U.S. military files. Assange's lawyers claim the Swedish prosecution is linked to the leaks and politically motivated.

Arguments over extradition to the U.S.

Preliminary defence arguments released earlier by Assange's legal team claimed "there is a real risk that, if extradited to Sweden, the U.S. will seek his extradition and/or illegal rendition to the USA, where there will be a real risk of him being detained at Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere."

The document adds "there is a real risk that he could be made subject to the death penalty" if sent to the United States.

Under European law, suspects cannot be extradited to jurisdictions where they may face execution.

Many legal experts say the Guantanamo claims are fanciful, and Sweden strongly denies coming under American pressure.

Nils Rekke, head of the legal department at the Swedish prosecutor's office in Stockholm, said Assange would be protected from transfer to the U.S. by strict European rules.

"If Assange was handed over to Sweden in accordance with the European Arrest Warrant, Sweden cannot do as Sweden likes after that," he said. "If there were any questions of an extradition approach from the U.S., then Sweden would have to get an approval from the United Kingdom."

Lives in mansion on bail condition

WikiLeaks sparked an international uproar last year when it published a secret helicopter video showing a U.S. attack that killed two Reuters journalists in Baghdad.

It went on to release hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. military files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it later began publishing classified U.S. diplomatic cables whose revelations angered and embarrassed the U.S. and its allies.

Assange, 39, was arrested in London in December after Sweden issued a warrant on rape and molestation accusations.

He has been released on bail on condition he live under curfew and electronically tagged at a supporter's country mansion in eastern England.

He drew a large media scrum at a brief court appearance in London last month, where he vowed to step up the leak of a quarter million classified U.S. diplomatic cables.