Assange in bid to block extradition

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is asking the Supreme Court to block his extradition to Sweden where he faces sex crime allegations.

The 40-year-old Australian begins his challenge on Wednesday before seven judges in the highest court in the land. He is attempting to overturn a High Court ruling that it would not be unfair or unlawful to remove him.

A key legal question before the Supreme Court justices is whether a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) issued against him by a Swedish public prosecutor is valid under provisions of the 2003 Extradition Act.

The Swedish authorities want him to answer accusations of "raping" one woman and "sexually molesting and coercing" another in Stockholm in August 2010 while on a visit to give a lecture.

Assange, whose WikiLeaks website published a mass of leaked diplomatic cables that embarrassed several governments and international businesses, says the sex was consensual and the allegations against him are politically motivated.

Julian Assange says Swedish sex crime
 allegations against him are politically motivated

The High Court upheld a ruling by District Judge Howard Riddle at Belmarsh Magistrates' Court, south London, that the computer expert should be extradited to face investigation.

Assange burst into the public consciousness in April 2010 when Wikileaks released Collateral Murder - video footage of a US air crew shooting Iraqi civilians in 2007.

The whistleblower website, which claimed a database of 1.2 million documents within a year of its 2006 launch, regularly hit the headlines in 2010 with a series of leaks.

By the end of the year he had become a minor celebrity. Upon his arrest in December 2010 he had a number of famous friends and supporters who helped him to raise bail of £200,000. He has been on bail and living at the country mansion of a wealthy supporter in Norfolk.

If the Supreme Court rejects his appeal it will mark the end of his lengthy legal battle in the UK, but it will still be open to him to ask the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to intervene on his behalf.

©Press Association

Huhne charges 'would be serious'

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has warned that it would be a "very serious issue" if Energy Secretary Chris Huhne was charged over speeding case allegations.

Nick Clegg said it would be
a 'very serious issue' if Chris Huhne
was charged over speeding
case allegations

Mr Clegg said he and David Cameron would have to "take a view" if the Crown Prosecution Service decided to press charges over claims his Liberal Democrat colleague persuaded his then wife to take speeding points.

He said that they were determined to uphold the "highest standards of probity" among ministers.

"Of course, that is a very serious issue if that were to arise," he told BBC1's The Andrew Marr Show.

"The Cabinet Secretary who is the arbiter of these things can provide advice and the Prime Minister and myself and others would need to take a view.

"But we as a Government want the highest standards of probity to be in place in everything that is done by Cabinet members."

The way was cleared for a swift ruling after the publishers of the Sunday Times dropped a High Court challenge to a court order requiring emails relating to the allegations to be produced to Essex Police.

A CPS spokesman said that as soon as they received the evidence they would consider it carefully and would reach "a decision as soon as possible".

Police began investigations following claims by Mr Huhne's former wife, Vicky Pryce, in a Sunday Times interview that he had asked "someone" to take speeding points on his behalf in 2003 to avoid losing his licence.

It later emerged the "someone" was allegedly Mrs Pryce.