Chinese contemporary artist and activist Ai Weiwei and demonstrators protest with masks of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during a Pro-Assange demo at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.
The 47-year-old, his shaggy beard neatly trimmed, raised his fist to supporters in the public gallery at London’s Southwark Crown Court as he was taken down to the cells.WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson called the sentence an “outrage” at a press conference outside and said that focus would now shift to preventing Assange’s extradition to the US.
“As threats rained down on him from America, they overshadowed everything as far as he was concerned,” the lawyer said. The biggest concern for his lawyers is the US extradition request. An initial hearing in the case has been scheduled for this Thursday. Assange could face up to five years in jail if found guilty, although his team is fighting his extradition and the process could take years.
The Swedish claims against Assange date back to 2010, when he was at the centre of a global storm over WikiLeaks’ exposures.