You're reading: Assange backers ordered to pay up after asylum bid

LONDON — A British judge on Monday ordered supporters of Julian Assange to pay thousands of pounds they promised for his bail because the WikiLeaks founder violated the conditions for his release.

The 41-year-old Assange
violated a condition to report to a police station daily when he sought
refuge at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he has been holed up
since June 19 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning over
sex crimes allegations.

The WikiLeaks founder and his supporters
claim that the Swedish sex case is part of a Washington-orchestrated
plot to make him stand trial in the United States over his work with
WikiLeaks, which has published thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic
cables and other documents. Both Sweden and the U.S. reject that claim.

Former
BBC journalist Vaughan Smith, who hosted Assange at his country house
for more than a year as the WikiLeaks founder fought extradition, was
among the nine supporters who had argued that they should not be
punished for trying to “serve the public interest” in the case.

But
Chief Magistrate Howard Riddle on Monday ordered them to pay 93,500
pounds ($150,000) by Nov. 6, saying that while he accepted the
supporters had acted in good faith, they had failed in their “basic
duty” to ensure Assange surrendered.

“They must have understood
the risk and the concerns of the courts,” he said in his ruling,
ordering each of the nine to pay part of 140,000 pounds ($224,300)
originally pledged.

Still, the judge said he respected the
supporters for acting against their own self- interest in refraining
from urging Assange to surrender.

“They have acted on their
beliefs and principles throughout,” Riddle said. “In what is sometimes
considered to be a selfish age, that is admirable.”

The other
backers of Assange include retired professor Tricia David, Nobel
Prize-winning scientist John Sulston, journalist Philip Knightley, Lady
Caroline Evans, friend Sarah Saunders, Joseph Farrell, Sarah Harrison
and Tracy Worcester.

Talks between British and Ecuadorean
officials to resolve the deadlock over Assange’s fate have not been
fruitful. British officials say Assange will be arrested if he steps
outside the embassy.