Julian Assange arrested in Britain
Top story: British police arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange today, after he showed up at a police station in London. His appearance had been previously arranged with authorities. He will appear in front of a court later today, where a magistrate will rule on his lawyers' request that he be freed on bail. The WikiLeaks Twitter feed wrote that the hearing is scheduled for 1:30 pm.
Assange, who was arrested by Scotland Yard's extradition unit, faces charges of rape and sexual molestation in in Sweden. Mark Stephens, Assange's lawyer in Britain, has previously argued that the request for extradition is meant to place pressure on Assange to halt WikiLeaks' release of over 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables.
WikiLeaks, however, said that Assange's arrest will not alter its plans to release the documents. "Today's actions against our editor-in-chief Julian Assange won't affect our operations: we will release more cables tonight as normal," a post on the WikiLeaks Twitter account stated.
