As I write, Julian Assange may still be in custody, while the necessary processing work is done by the people who’ve stood surety for him, according to media reports. You’ll see that under section 8(4) and (5) of the Bail Act 1976, the sureties will have to be considered acceptable by the police, if they’re turning up at police stations to “enter their recognizance” as the legislation puts it.
Nor have I seen a definitive, detailed report of exactly what the bail conditions are, although it appears they’re similar to those laid down by the district judge on Tuesday – residence at a known address in Suffolk, one or more periods of curfew, electronic monitoring, daily reporting to a police station (in the afternoons, when it’s open), £200,000 security and sureties of at least £40,000. It’s pretty much the full panoply of conditions the judge could have imposed.
But while we’re waiting for him to be released, I thought I should deal with a couple of questions that may be occurring to people now.
First, there’s no provision for any further appeal against bail from the prosecution. So once Julian Assange is released – I still presume tonight – he will be free until the next extradition hearing on the 11th of January.
As long as he complies with the bail conditions, that is. If he breached any of them, he could be arrested under section 7 and brought again before a district judge, who’d decide whether he was in breach, and if so whether to remand him in custody.
He could also be arrested of course if he failed to turn up at his next extradition hearing on 11th January (section 7(1)) – and that would be an offence under section 6(1).
“So once Julian Assange is released – I still presume tonight – he will be free until the next extradition hearing on the 11th of January.”
Can someone have more than one extradition request, simultaneously, applied to them, ie, could the US issue an extradition request and perhaps Assange gets detained again under this second extradition request?
In theory I suppose, yes. But the extradition case would go straight to the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court, where there’s a very good chance it’d come before the same district judge who gave him bail last week, with any appeal quite likely going to the same High Court judge, Mr. Justice Ouseley, who granted bail today. In any event, whatever judge it was before would be told by the defence about his record of bail compliance in this case. If he’s kept by the very strong conditions, the chances of his being remanded in custody … I’d put at zero, assuming no radical new circumstance arises that neither of us has heard of. I don’t think the CPS would oppose bail on the same conditions as on the Swedish warrant.
Thanks. I’m not sure about zero though as Assange himself as intimated that the Swedish charges will be fairly easy for him to get over, but he defiantly does not want to go to the US, ergo, the risk of flight on bail during US extradition proceedings is much, much higher imv (especially if it’s likely extradition would be granted) than the risk of flight from extradition to Sweden. Simultaneous extradition charges merely increases the temptation of flight imv.
He pretty defiantly wants to avoid going to Sweden! And he may say the allegations will be “easy for him to get over”, but we don’t know.
But the courts will look at it all if there is a second request.
So, when ITV News at Ten were waiting outside his bail house and he hadn’t turned up: should he have been automatically arrested under s7?
Well, there’s no automatic arrest. I imagine his return tonight has been agreed and coordinated with the police – if so, they certainly won’t have been ultra-pedantic about it. There’d be no point in arresting him, and they’d only be slammed by the district judge, if they arrested him for something trivial or unreasonable.
Anyway, what are the curfew periods? The district judge laid down 10pm-2am and 10am-2pm – I thought those a bit funny, to be honest. Are we sure they’re the same?
ITV News implied it was still a 10pm curfew, but, as you point out, this may just be an assumption the original bail conditions were kept.
I note “one or more” curfew conditions. It is widely reported (especially by Wikileaks) that Mr Assange had been under “house arrest”. Can you clarify what the curfew was – did he have freedom of movement, or was he unable to leave the residence in Suffolk?