[THS] Guardian: Julian Assange's lawyers say they are being watched

[The Harder Stuff in news and commentary]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/05/julian-assange-lawyers-being-watched

Julian Assange's lawyers say they are being watched

WikiLeaks founder's lawyers also accuse US state department of inappropriate
behaviour in not respecting attorney-client protocol

    * Sam Jones and agencies
    * guardian.co.uk, Sunday 5 December 2010 16.16 GMT

Julian Assange's lawyer Mark Stephens appears on BBC1's Andrew Marr Show Julian
Assange's lawyer Mark Stephens appears on BBC1's Andrew Marr Show and
denounces the warrant for Assange's extradition for questioning on sex allegations in
Sweden as a 'political stunt'. Photograph: Jeff Overs/BBC/PA

Lawyers representing the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, say that they have been
surveilled by members of the security services and have accused the US state
department of behaving "inappropriately" by failing to respect attorney-client
protocol.

Jennifer Robinson and Mark Stephens of the law firm Finers Stephens Innocent told
the Guardian they had been watched by people parked outside their houses for the
past week.

"I've noticed people consistently sitting outside my house in the same cars with
newspapers," said Robinson. "I probably noticed certain things a week ago, but
mostly it's been the last three or four days."

Stephens said he, too, had had his home watched. Asked who he thought was
monitoring him, he said: "The security services."

Robinson said the legal team was also experiencing "other forms of pressure" from
Washington.

She pointed to a letter from a state department legal adviser – addressed to both
Assange and her – which appeared to bracket together client and lawyer as if to
suggest that WikiLeaks and its lawyers were one and the same.

The letter, which was released to the press, begins: "Dear Ms Robinson and Mr
Assange. I am writing in response to your 26 November 2010 letter to US
Ambassador Louis B Susman regarding your intention to again publish on your
WikiLeaks site what you claim to be classified US government documents."

Robinson said: "By eliding client and lawyer, that was a very inappropriate attempt to
implicate me. That is really inappropriate to come from the state department of all
places; they understand very well the rules on attorney-client protocol."

She said that although they had requested a public retraction from the state
department, no answer had been received.

"It's quite a serious situation," she said, adding that, according to the UN's Basic
Principles on the Role of Lawyers, governments should ensure that lawyers "are able
to perform all of their professional functions without intimidation, hindrance,
harassment or improper interference" and that "lawyers shall not be identified with
their clients or their clients' causes as a result of discharging their functions".

A spokeswoman for the Home Office declined to comment on the lawyers'
surveillance claims.

Assange, who is staying in Britain, has come under growing pressure from politicians
in the US and around the world after his site started publishing excerpts from a
cache of 250,000 secret American diplomatic cables last week.

It emerged on Saturday that Australian police are investigating whether Assange, an
Australian citizen, has broken any of the country's laws and is liable to prosecution
there.

The foreign minister, Kevin Rudd, said: "The Australian government unequivocally
condemns the action by any of those responsible for the unauthorised release of
classified and confidential information and diplomatic communications between
states."

Swedish prosecutors have sent an international arrest warrant to the Metropolitan
police, seeking the extradition of Assange for questioning on allegations – which he
strongly denies – of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion.

Stephens today denounced the extradition warrant as a "political stunt" and said
Assange would fight deportation to Sweden on the grounds that it could lead to him
being handed over to the US, where senior politicians have called for him to be
executed.

The former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has described him as "an anti-
American operative with blood on his hands" and called for him to be hunted down
like a Taliban leader, while another senior Republican, Mike Huckabee, has said that
"anything less than execution is too kind a penalty" for his actions.

Stephens said that Sweden's chief prosecutor had told Assange in September that
there was no case for him to answer, following complaints against him by two
women, but the investigation was revived following the intervention of a Swedish
politician.

He said that Swedish prosecutors knew where Assange was and urged them to call
him to discuss the case.

Stephens told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show: "It is quite bizarre, because the chief
prosecutor in Sweden dropped the entire case against him, saying there was
absolutely nothing for him to find back in September, and then a few weeks later on
– after the intervention of a Swedish politician – a new prosecutor, not in Stockholm
where Julian and these women had been, but in Gothenburg, began a new case
which has resulted in these warrants and the Interpol Red Notice being put out."

He added: "It does seem to be a political stunt."