Julian Assange Fears Extradition: 'Rape Charges Politcal'

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is fighting a planned extradition from England to Sweden, claiming that sexual misconduct charges against him there are unsound.

Assange, who angered governments when his Web site WikiLeaks began exposing confidential government documents, is wanted on an European arrest warrant for three allegations of sexual assault which took place in Sweden in a year ago.

The native Australian is currently at a hearing at the High Court in London, which will determine whether Assange will go back to Sweden for sentencing. The WikiLeaks founder claims that the charges should be thrown out because there is a philosophical and judicial mismatch between the Swedish accusations and English law.

He also believes that he is a victim of a political attack, due to the controversy surrounding WikiLeaks. When documents were released to the public en masse last winter, outraged governments around the world either condemned Assange or considered putting him under arrest.

The United States is one of the countries that considered bringing criminal charges against Assange. WikiLeaks has published more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic documents, some of which embarrassed US President Barack Obama's White House and potentially damaged relations with some countries.

Assange has a number of supporters, however, many of whom showed up to support the controversial figure. They held signs and gathered outside the court.

Supporters also rallied online, as they have done in the past. Hacker group Anonymous said it would release a substantial amount of data, likely related to government employees. Anonymous attacked a number of Web sites during the initial WikiLeaks controversy, and shut down MasterCard after the credit card company stopped accepting WikiLeaks donations.