JULIAN Assange, the man behind WikiLeaks, today launched a wide ranging series of attacks on both his enemies and allies as he defended his public and private conduct.
In his first UK newspaper interview since releasing hundreds of secret diplomatic cables last month, Mr Assange told The Times he predicts the US will face reprisals if it attempts to extradite him on conspiracy charges.
He accused his media partners at The Guardian newspaper, which worked with him to make the embarrassing leaks public, of unfairly tarnishing him by revealing damaging details of the sex assault allegations he faces in Sweden.
He insisted that the women behind the claims were motivated by revenge.
Mr Assange said he had enough material ready to destroy the bosses of one of the world’s biggest banks.
Speaking from the English mansion where he is confined on bail, the 39-year-old Australian said that the decision to publish incriminating police files about him was "disgusting". The Guardian had previously used him as its source for hundreds of leaked US embassy cables.
Mr Assange is understood to be particularly angry with a senior reporter at the paper and former friend for "selectively publishing" incriminating sections of the police report, although The Guardian made clear that the WikiLeaks founder was given several days to respond.
Mr Assange claimed the newspaper received leaked documents from Swedish authorities or "other intelligence agencies" intent on jeopardising his defence...
"The leak was clearly designed to undermine my bail application," he said. "Someone in authority clearly intended to keep Julian in prison."
He denied allegations of sexual assault and said that the allegations by two Swedish women he met in August "came from nowhere".
Mr Assange was arrested and held in Wandsworth prison after Swedish authorities issued an extradition request. He was released on bail last week on a surety of £275,000 ($US427,872).
He said that he still had not seen the full extent of the allegations against him, although he accepted that his Swedish lawyer had been handed many of the details.
When asked if he was promiscuous, he replied: "I’m not promiscuous. I just really like women."
Mr Assange also confirmed that WikiLeaks was holding a vast amount of material about a bank which it intends to release early next year..
Shares in Bank of America recently fell after speculation spread that it was the target.
"We don’t want the bank to suffer unless it’s called for," Mr Assange said. "But if its management is operating in a responsive way there will be resignations."
US officials are reportedly searching for ways to extradite him on espionage charges. Vice President Joe Biden recently called the WikiLeaks founder a "high-tech terrorist".
Mr Assange said that he believed that the US situation would "turn around absolutely" as a groundswell of favourable opinion grew in America.
"The people in power are organised and were able to respond quickly," he said. "But numerically they are not that strong and our support in the general population is tremendous."
Mr Assange's interview follows revelations that police feared he would be assassinated on the front steps of London's High Court.
He revealed earlier he was told to keep a statement celebrating his freedom brief due a perceived threat on his life.
The police concerns emerged as Mr Assange revealed further details about his prison stay - including that he was housed alongside paedophiles and found support among prison guards.
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Naval Ratings have been known to descend heavily on our Citizens at the drop of a hat .The case of Uzoma Okere and Rear Admiral Harry Olufemi Arogundade where Okere, daughter of the sergeant at arms at the National Assembly Colonel Emmanuel Okere (rtd), was beaten black and blue by Dirty Harry Arogundade's minions of destruction,The Naval ratings of The Naija Navy.
It was once thought that the fear of Lasma was the beginning of wisdom but it is looking to be the Fear of Naija Naval Ratings is the ending of this wise saying lagosians are known to chant. Read on this pathetic story of oppression in high places on powerless citizens.
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Stern-looking military men recently stormed the Trinity Anglican Primary School, Gwagwalada, a suburb of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in a commando style, abducted two pupils and fled. Panic seized teachers and pupils of the school when they sighted the unfriendly visitors, all naval officers, who were said to have demanded for the head teacher screaming, “who is the headmaster/mistress here?”
Photo:Mrs. Paulyn Midalah
The five armed men, according to eye-witnesse accounts, proceeded to whisk away Favour and Marvel Steve Midalah, both pupils of the school, in the full glare of the shell-shocked teachers and other pupils.
An eyewitness recounted: “A well-fed" woman was directing the officers on what to do. When our headmistress confronted them, the woman told her to ask the parents to come to police station in Gwagwalada and meet the children there.”
Mother of the abducted kids, Mrs. Paulyn Midalah alleged that the abduction of her children was carried out on the order of the wife of a retired top naval officer. She said the woman also gave order to the police to arrest her and detain her along with her children until her husband would come for them.
She said her children had left home for school in the morning of Tuesday, April 28, 2010: “Around 10.30am that day, I received a telephone call from my children’s headmaster that a certain woman had come to the school with armed naval officers to pick my children from school.
“I immediately put a call through to my son, Favour, and he picked it and said ‘Hello Mummy.’ Soon after, I guess someone had collected the phone from my child. “After that, all attempts to reach him on that phone proved abortive as my phone kept telling me the number was switched off. I became very worried and rushed to the school and met the headmaster who confirmed that a certain woman came with armed naval officers to pick my children from school and bundled their bicycles into her vehicle.
“The headmaster couldn’t remember the name of the woman that came to the school to whisk my kids away. I rushed to the school gate but couldn’t find anyone to give me proper briefing. I rushed back to the house and the kids were not home, I was more confused. and started running up and down our Estate at.
“Somewhere in our estate, Phase 1, Gwagwalada, I sighted a white bus carrying the children’s bicycles. I later learnt that it was the wife of a top naval chief (name witheld) who came to my children’s school with armed naval officers to whisk my children away.
“My husband had worked for her before, but he left them three years ago after my family had a motor accident on March 17, 2007. He sustained compound fracture and even lost his left elbow. My son Favour’s face was so badly battered by glasses that we had to take him for plastic surgery. She abandoned us to our fate and my husband had to sell the house he had just built then to raise the money for surgery on his badly fractured left hand.
“My husband still has about 15 iron screws in his left hand up till today. My son’s face, where surgeons removed glasses from three months, six months and even one year after the accident, is still there as proof of man’s inhumanity to man.
“When I saw them, I confronted them. They said I needed to go with them to the Gwagwalada Police Station, which I did. On arrival at the police station, the woman started making some allegations against my husband and me. She told the police to detain us and never to release me until my husband surfaced. That she had an unsettled issue with my husband. I told her that I didn’t work with her so what was my offence?
“She kept raining abuses on me and said that I must sleep at the police station. We eventually slept at the Gwagwalada Police Station.
“The following morning my family, friends and well wishers prevailed on the police to release the children. Before my children could be released, the Inspector Crime at the station had to call the naval chief’s wife and obtained her permission.
“All attempts by our family, friends and well wishers including that of a lawyer to bail me proved abortive. Police vehemently refused to grant me bail saying I must get clearance from the woman or my husband had to come. I told them that my husband was out of town on a business trip but they would not listen.
“In the police cell I was subjected to the most dehumanizing experience of my life. I had to lie on bare floor that had been contaminated with urine and human excretment, with maggots scattered all over the room. I spent three days at Gwagwalada Police Station.
“By afternoon on Friday, April 30, 2010, the Inspector, Crimes at the station instructed a junior police officer to bring me from the cell. When I was brought out he said the woman wanted to speak with me.
“She said since I had refused to tell them the whereabouts of my husband she has instructed the police to transfer my case to Kuje where I would be jailed. Not too long after we spoke, I was taken to Kuje Police Station and detained for another four days.
“All attempts to bail me were denied because according to the Divisional Crime Officer (DCO), besides that the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) was not around, the woman had not given them the go ahead.
“It was not until the fifth day when my family members threatened to bring my children back to the police station that the DCO agreed that my family should bring someone with landed property at Kuje to bail me. When my family eventually brought someone with landed property, the old story of the DPO that the woman was not reachable at the moment continued.
“On Tuesday, May 4, 2010, my brother came to the police station and told me that they had contacted the press. Later, the Inspector Crime from Gwagwalada Police Station came to Kuje Police Station. My brother informed me that surprisingly the man who strongly opposed my release on bail at Gwagwalada Police Station was now canvassing that I be released. He said the woman had communicated to them that she got a call from a journalist and that I should be released to avoid the press. I was released and asked to come with my husband in a week’s time. I spent seven days in police custody
“In the same manner two years ago, she used naval ratings and abducted two of my husband’s younger brothers. They beat them mercilessly and took them to her house where she kept them in custody for one week.
“I hereby appeal to all human rights agencies to come to the aid of my family and stop this injustice against us where some animals are more equal than others. Where a woman would use her husband’s position as a to abduct people’s children from school and use money and influence to deny me bail from police custody for seven days.”
However, all efforts to reach the retired naval chief’s wife on her cell phones proved abortive. She constantly evaded calls placed on her two phone lines. At other times, she picked her calls but once she heard the voice she cut the line and switched off immediately. FCT police spokesman, Jimoh Moshood, said he is not aware of the development. He promised to find out and later intimate the reporter but he never did.
A discharged soldier, Idris Oyinbo, and a dismissed police officer, Gideon Baba, both went to the Apapa Wharf on March 15, 2010 with one mission in mind: commandeer and escort a trailer load of bags of sugar to awaiting buyers in Mushin, a suburb in Lagos State.PHOTO:
At about 6:30pm the same day, the duo, partially dressed in army and police outfits, met with their sponsor, one Kingsley (at large), who is believed to have masterminded the operation. In turn, Kingsley introduced them to Soji Smart, who would drive the trailer to their destination.
Having understood their roles, they followed the trailer, which had just left the wharf outward Lagos, in a chartered taxi, till it got to the Marine Bridge in Apapa. They then intercepted the truck and dragged the driver out of the truck into the taxi, while Mr. Smart together with his escorts drove off.
Mr. Smart said he was contracted to drive the truck for N4,000. Narrating how they were caught, he said luck ran out on them when they were stopped by officers of the Nigeria Police and the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) while in traffic.
"A woman Police Inspector stopped us in go-slow. She asked for my driving license but I did not have. The two men said they were Force men, so she asked for their ID cards. The policeman showed his own but because the army man did not have his own, she asked everyone to come down," Mr. Smart said.
Other police officers quickly gathered at the scene and arrested the suspects, though Kingsley successfully got away.
In his confession, Mr. Oyinbo, a 40-year-old pensioner and father of two children, said he was discharged from the Army in March 2005 while serving as a corporal in the army's 81 Division.
Since then, he had been involved in various crimes, including car theft, while parading himself as a serving military personnel.
"I knew Kingsley late 2009 at Apapa Wharf. It was him who approached me to carry out the operation. I then called my police friend to follow me to escort the goods. I know it is not legal to do escort, but man must survive," Mr. Oyinbo said.
On his part, Mr. Baba, who comes from Kaduna, said after a prolonged leg injury, leading to his dismissal as a corporal from the police in 2006, he also began rendering escort services to sustain himself and his family.
In his words, "I know it is wrong to use my ID card, but I have to help myself because I am a family man".
Commenting on the arrests, the Lagos State Police spokesperson, Frank Mba, said the suspects led the police to Mushin where one Rukayat Abubakar and her friend, Kudi (at large), were waiting to receive the about 300 stolen bags of sugar valued at several millions.
"Our detectives within a space of twelve hours were able to make the whole arrest. The lady is actually one of the receivers just waiting for the syndicate somewhere in Mushin. As soon as investigations are over they would be prosecuted," Mr. Mba said.
