Melbourne, Dec.3 (ANI): Declassified cables have revealed that Australian diplomats raised no objections to the U.S. pursuit of whistle blowing website WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on charges of espionage and conspiracy.
The cables, released under freedom of information to The Saturday Age this week, reveal that Australian diplomats have been talking to the US Justice Department for more than a year about US criminal investigations of WikiLeaks and Assange.
While the Justice Department has been reluctant to disclose details of the WikiLeaks probe, the Australian embassy in Washington reported in December 2010 that the investigation was "unprecedented both in its scale and nature" and that media reports that a secret grand jury had been convened in Alexandria, Virginia, were "likely true".
Last week, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd told Parliament that the Australian government is "not aware of any current extradition request [for Assange] by US authorities" and has "no formal advice" concerning a US grand jury investigation directed at WikiLeaks.
On Monday, Assange will learn whether he will be allowed a further legal appeal against his extradition from Britain to Sweden to be questioned about sexual molestation allegations.
The Foreign Minister avoided a direct answer to a question about whether Assange could be subject to a "temporary surrender" mechanism that could allow him to be extradited from Sweden to the United States.
US Army Private Bradley Manning has been charged with "aiding the enemy" by leaking hundreds of thousands of classified US government documents, published by WikiLeaks since February 2010. (ANI)
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