VIDEO - RT News - Defence Witness: Assange sex-crime case fabricated by prosecutors (2011)

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT Defence Witness: Assange sex-crime case fabricated by prosecutors RT NEWS Studio Presenter The verdict in the high profile case of the WikiLeaks founder has been adjourned for two weeks. Julian Assange appeared in court in London on Friday as he continues his battle against extradition to Sweden where he faces questioning over sex crime allegations. He claims the case was fabricated so the US can use Sweden to hand him over on espionage charges. RT's Laura Emmett has been keeping track of developments from outside the court. RT NEWS Reporter, London “All we're waiting for is the verdict, and that is due to be delivered, we now know, on the 24th of February – so in a couple of weeks' time. We were hearing today the closing statements made by both the defence and the prosecution, and now the judge is going to presumably retire to his chambers for two weeks to think about the evidence that he's heard and then come up finally with a verdict. So on the 24th of February. We're not expecting that to take very long. Literally everyone will just gather here and the judge will tell us what he's decided. In terms of what we've been hearing on Friday morning, we essentially heard summaries of the evidence from the prosecution and from the defence. The prosecution has maintained all along and maintained today that there's no reason why Assange shouldn't go to Sweden to answer these questions. Following the news of that postponement, Julian Assange came out of the court and gave a short statement to the media. He used that statement to highlight what he called the injustices of the European Arrest Warrant, under which his extradition is being requested. Let's see what he had to say. JULIAN ASSANGE WikiLeaks Founder It gives me hope that we can, through this particular case, not simply draw attention to the difficulties and the pressures that we and other people have been under, but, rather, perhaps we have an opportunity to set a new precedent about the abuses of European Arrest Warrants. RT NEWS Reporter, London We heard some graphic details from the defence about these alleged assaults, sort of almost making light of these allegations, as the prosecution said, talking about the sexual encounters that took place with two women in August. And we also heard an angry statement by the defence solicitor about comments that the Swedish Prime Minister has made recently about Julian Assange. The defence called that a devastatingly prejudicial attack, and said that the Swedish Prime Minister had spread malicious lies about Julian Assange, suggesting that he believes that women's rights are worthless, and also suggesting that he's already been charged with this 'rape', which, in fact, is not the case at all. MARK STEVENS Defence In any decent country, the rule of law is separate from the political process. It appears that in Sweden it is not, and that the Prime Minister has, I am afraid to say, sought to taint the legal process. Just one more example of the quite exceptional behaviour in the Julian Assange case – another Assange factor. RT NEWS Reporter, London We heard some quite graphic details from the defence about these alleged assaults – sort of, almost making light of these allegations, as the prosecution said – talking about these sexual encounters that took place with two women in August. And we also heard an angry statement by the defence solicitor about comments that the Swedish Prime Minister has made recently about Julian Assange. The defence called that a devastatingly prejudicial attack and said that the Swedish Prime Minister had spread malicious lies about Julian Assange, suggesting that he believes that women's rights are worthless, and also suggesting that he's already been charged with this 'rape', which, in fact, is not the case at all. So that has brought in a rather worrying political element to the case. We also heard from the defence that these charges would not constitute 'rape' here in the UK, and, in fact, the defence maintains that the essence of the charges wouldn't constitute 'rape' anywhere else in the world, apart from in Sweden. I spoke earlier to Goran Rudling, who's a Swedish rape campaigner, and he told me about the bizarre way in which the investigation has been conducted from the very beginning. GORAN RUDLING Defence Witness It looked like Julian was declared innocent by one prosecutor. Then you have to find out immediately find out, OK, what's the truth: what's his side of the story? What they did instead was try to collect evidence and they interviewed all kinds of witnesses, in another way which wasn't very good, to try to build a case against him. It's like prejudice. Like they're saying: 'He's guilty; let's get him.” And of thirteen people interviewed by the police, three are tape-recorded. Only three. Julian is tape-recorded on the 30th of August . The two witnesses that could speak in his favour are tape-recorded. All the other witnesses are just summary interviews. Sometimes accusers change their story, and if we don't have their story, we can't compare it to the suspect's story. It's impossible to investigate. RT NEWS Reporter, London This is also a case that has descended at times into a farce, and today is no exception. There's a new book out by a man called Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who used to work with Julian Assange at WikiLeaks, and he has essentially written a book about Assange and his relationship with him. He says that Assange has an 'emperor complex', that he wants to be the king and the all-powerful person over everything, and he also alleges that Assange has turned into the sort of man that he used to hate, the sort of man that he used to want to bring to justice.  But the most bizarre thing about the allegations that Domscheit-Berg has made is something to do with his cat. He said that Assange lived with him for a while in Weisbaden in Germany and that Domscheit-Berg has a cat which Julian entered into a war of supremacy with, essentially attacking the cat and then pulling back, seeing who would win. Sometimes the cat won, sometimes Assange won. And he says that that shows that Assange is some kind of power-hungry maniac. So, really, a lot of people are trying to jump on this bandwagon to take advantage of Assange's fame or infamy, depending on which way you look at it. [end – 6:25]