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A British judge has granted bail to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The judge at a London court said Tuesday that Assange must abide by strict bail conditions as he fights extradition to Sweden in a sex-crimes investigation.

The 39-year-old Australian has been held in a London prison for a week after surrendering to Scotland Yard police to answer a Swedish arrest warrant.

Assange is wanted for questioning after two women accused him of sexual misconduct in separate encounters in Sweden over the summer. Lawyers for Assange say he denies the allegations and will contest Sweden's attempt to extradite him for questioning.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

LONDON -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appeared Tuesday in a London court, seeking bail to get out of a British jail as he fights a Swedish request to extradite him in a sex-crimes investigation.

The 39-year-old Australian was brought into court in a prison van before the hearing as supporters and journalists gathered in the street and in the courtroom.

The City of Westminster Magistrates' court was packed with lawyers, journalists and celebrities, including filmmaker Ken Loach and socialite Jemima Khan who have both offered to contribute 20,000 pounds ($31,500) each in bond for Assange.

Assange is wanted for questioning after two women accused him of sexual misconduct in separate encounters in Sweden over the summer. Lawyers for Assange say he denies the allegations and will contest Sweden's attempt to extradite him for questioning.

Assange was placed into custody at a hearing a week ago after surrendering to Scotland Yard to answer a Swedish arrest warrant.

Assange's lawyer, Mark Stephens, said his client would offer to be electronically tagged and stay at an address known to the police.

"One's never going to count one's chickens until they're hatched, but I hope that in these circumstances the district judge will feel confident" granting bail, Stephens told Sky News.

Gemma Lindfield, appearing for the Swedish authorities, asked the court to deny Assange bail.

"This is not a case about WikiLeaks, rather a case about alleged serious offenses against two women," she said.

Lindfield said the allegations were serious, while Assange had only weak ties to Britain and "the means and ability to abscond."

Assange is being represented in court by Geoffrey Robertson, a former appeals judge at the U.N. Special Court for Sierra Leone who specializes in freedom of speech cases. Robertson's former clients include author Salman Rushdie.

Some Assange supporters suspect the extradition request has been motivated by WikiLeaks' decision last month to begin publishing a trove of 250,000 secret U.S. diplomatic cables, something Swedish officials have denied.

"It is too much of a coincidence," said protester Alex Potterill, 33. "This is an attack on the valuable work of WikiLeaks. It is an attempt to gag a valuable source of information."

Assange remained defiant in comments from prison relayed Tuesday by his mother. Australia's Seven network said Christine Assange spoke to her son for 10 minutes and asked him, at the network's request, whether it had been worth it.

"My convictions are unfaltering," the network quoted Julian Assange as saying. "I remain true to the ideals I have expressed. This circumstance shall not shake them. If anything, this process has increased my determination that they are true and correct."

The WikiLeaks disclosures, which have continued since Assange was detained in prison, have deeply angered U.S. officials, who claim that other countries have already curtailed their dealings with the U.S. government as a result.

Assange's Swedish lawyer, Bjorn Hurtig, claims the courts are stacked against defendants in sex cases in Sweden. However, a 2009 European Commission-funded study found only 10 percent of sex offenses reported in Sweden result in a conviction.

A decision on whether to extradite Assange is expected to take several weeks. Both Assange and the Swedish government are entitled to appeal against the ruling if the judge rules against them.

Britain's national security adviser said Monday that U.K. government websites could be attacked in retribution if Assange is not released. Online "hacktivists" have already launched cyber attacks on companies that cut ties to WikiLeaks, including MasterCard Inc., Visa Inc. and PayPal Inc.

In his statement Tuesday, Assange called those companies "instruments of U.S. foreign policy."

"I am calling on the world to protect my work and my people from these illegal and immoral attacks," he was quoted as saying.

http://www.seattlepi.com/business/1310ap_eu_wikileaks_assange.html

Is this the beginning of the end?

More leaks please!

it's on BBC, too.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11989216

This is good news but with people like Assange walking, one can only but imagine what can happen if this guy should go rogue or another hacker as good as himself should go rogue. They'll bring the world down on its knees, we truly are in the information age with the possessor or controller of information being king even if he's just 13yrs

from BBC's website:

The founder of whistle-blowing website Wikileaks has been granted bail in London on conditions including cash guarantees of £240,000.

But Julian Assange will remain in custody as prosecutors have two hours to lodge an appeal against bail.

The 39-year-old Australian is fighting extradition to Sweden, where he is accused of sexually assaulting two women - charges he denies.

Other bail conditions include having to give up his passport.

Mr Assange was bailed on condition he provide a security of £200,000 to the court, with two sureties guaranteed of a further £20,000 each.

He will also have to obey a curfew at an address in Suffolk, wear an electronic tag and report to a local police station every evening.

Mr Assange was refused bail last week despite the offer of sureties from figures including film director Ken Loach.

A number of protesters gathered outside City of Westminster Magistrates' Court for the bail hearing on Tuesday.

At least justice still means something somewhere . . . .

Yaaaaay!

Justice served, partially.

At least some people are still thinking properly. Kudos to the Westminster Justice. Although the conditions are very stiff.

i bet he knew what he was doing when he fled to the UK - a guarantee of fair hearing by one of the most independent judiciary in the world.

The top-end of the British judiciary will not bend to any pressure from anybody. His bail application will have been considered against all the facts & nothing else.

Thats why the applicable law in most international contracts tends to be English law, even when British companies are not involved.

Thats not to say Assange will certainly win the actual extradition case.

Missy85:

i bet he knew what he was doing when he fled to the UK - a guarantee of fair hearing by one of the most independent judiciary in the world.

Not just UK, Westminster.
This has got to be eating up the Americans now, or perhaps it's all planned. . .

Guys, check out Michael Moore's blog entry on why he helped bail Julian Assange. I'm currently using a phone browser, and unable to Copy-Paste the article (character limit issues) - but I'd like you to post the article on this thread, if chanced.

Here's the link: m.dailykos.com/stories/2010/12/14/928855/-Why-Im-Posting-Bail-Money-for-Julian-Assange.html

Assange granted bail, but Sweden appeals

Julian A[b]ssange would remain in jail for the next 48 hours.

London (CNN) -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was granted bail Tuesday after a hearing at Westminster Magistrate's Court in London, but a lawyer representing Swedish prosecutors immediately filed an appeal.
[/b]  
That means Assange will remain in jail until the next hearing, which should be within 48 hours, lawyers said.

The 39-year-old Australian handed himself over to London police last week to answer a European arrest warrant over alleged sex crimes in Sweden.

Assange is facing accusations of despoil, sexual molestation and illegal use of force in separate incidents in August in Stockholm. He could be sentenced to two years in prison if convicted. His lawyers deny the allegations and have vowed to fight any attempts at extradition.

The magistrate agreed to grant bail Tuesday after Vaughan Smith, a former British army officer who founded London's Frontline Club, testified that Assange could stay at his mansion in Suffolk.

Smith will keep Assange "if not under house arrest, at least under mansion arrest," said defense attorney Geoffrey Robinson. At that, Assange, dressed in a white shirt and a blue jacket and sitting in a glassed-in corner of the court with three security guards, smiled wryly.
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The magistrate set bail at 200,000 pounds (about $315,000) plus two sureties of 20,000 pounds each (about $31,500). Assange's passport must remain with police, and he will be monitored by a location tag.

Assange must be at Smith's mansion, about two hours outside of London, for at least four hours overnight and four hours during the day. He will be required to report to police daily between 6 and 8 p.m. The next court hearing was scheduled for January 11.

After the conditions were set, Assange stood and said, "I understand," with a neutral expression.

His mother Christine told reporters after the hearing that she was "very, very happy," and thanked "the media for all your support of my son."

But several hours later, Sweden filed its appeal.

Outside the court, about 100 people demonstrated in support of Assange, holding signs saying "Julian Assange is a political prisoner" and "Why are you shooting the messenger?" and "This is not 1984."

During the hearing, Assange's team of attorneys argued that since he is only wanted for questioning and has not been formally charged, he is presumed innocent. The magistrate agreed.

But, said Gemma Lindfield, the attorney representing the Swedish prosecution, "The court has already found that Mr. Assange is a flight risk. Nothing has changed in this regard."

She said if the alleged offenses had occurred in Britain, "it undoubtedly would have been a charge of despoil in this jurisdiction."

Robinson disputed that.

Celebrity supporters of Assange at the hearing included Bianca Jagger, who sat next to Fatima Bhutto, niece of the late Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto and current Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, and prominent left-wing journalist John Pilger.

Socialite Jemima Khan came to court but it is not clear she got into the very crowded hearing room. Many were turned away for lack of space.

Judge Howard Riddle denied Assange's first request for bail at a hearing on December 7 on the grounds that there was a risk he would fail to surrender.

On Tuesday, he cited four reasons for his insistence a week earlier on keeping Assange in jail: his lack of fixed residence, confusion over when and how he last entered the United Kingdom, the evidence against him in Sweden, and a dispute over whether Assange is wanted only for questioning or for prosecution.

Smith's offer of his mansion satisfied Riddle on the question of an address, and testimony from someone who arrived in the U.K. with Assange from Switzerland answered that question, he said.

He said he was not taking a position on the Swedish evidence against Assange, and that a future hearing would have to determine whether Assange was wanted for questioning or prosecution.

WikiLeaks' release of thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic and military documents is under criminal review in the United States.

Almost half of Britons believe that the sex charges against Assange are "an excuse" to keep him in custody so that the U.S. government can prosecute him for releasing secret diplomatic cables, a new poll for CNN shows.

The ComRes poll of British opinion, released Monday on the eve of Assange's bail hearing, finds that 44% of respondents in Great Britain believe that Sweden's sex charges are just a pretext, while only 13% flatly disagree.

The remaining 43% say they don't know.

Last week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said he had authorized "significant" actions related to a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks' publication of the materials but has declined to elaborate.

WikiLeaks inflamed U.S. authorities last month by publishing the first of a large group of confidential U.S. diplomatic cables.

Only a small fraction of the 250,000 U.S. State Department documents have been released and more are being published daily.

U.S. authorities and other Western leaders say the documents' publication threatens lives and national security.

WikiLeaks and its supporters say that the public has a right to know what is going on behind diplomatic doors.

CNN's Richard Allen Greene, Atika Shubert and Hilary Whiteman contributed to this report.

Damn The Swiss!!!! Bending to  American Pressures!!! Damn them! This means he remains in jail. . . .

Blazay:

Yaaaaay!

How was your midday nap?

Hope the handjob didnt take that long?

Welcome back!

And just in case you're wondering, Michael Moore is the film director behind the influential documentary, "Farenheit 911" - a documentary movie heavily exposing and criticising the Bush administration for its numerous failures (including the poor tackling of the September 11 issue, as well as the false war on Iraq).

spade:

And just in case you're wondering, Michael Moore is the film director behind the influential documentary, "Farenheit 911" - a documentary movie heavily exposing and criticising the Bush administration for its numerous failures (including the poor tackling of the September 11 issue, as well as the false war on Iraq).

That you link has been killed oh.

He was granted bail, but he is still in jail, because Swedish prosecutors are appealing the decision.

@Mobinga -- Sorry. The link problem arose from a minor typographical error on my part. It's been rectified now.
Try it again, please