WikiLeaks latest and Julian Assange's court appeal: live updates

• Assange returns to court to appeal for bail
• Assange criticises Visa, MasterCard and Paypal from cell
• Police worked case against Madeleine McCann's parents
• Full coverage of the WikiLeaks cables

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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, pictured through the heavily tinted windows of a police vehicle as he arrives at Westminster magistrates court in London, on 14 December 2010. Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images

3.12pm: Robertson offered a permanent address in the UK as surety, according to Brook.

Later he said "the mere absence of a fixed residence does not give rise to a danger of absconding" according to Mostrous.

3.00pm: We doubt whether this actual category of rape would be rape under English law, Robertson told the court, according to Mostrous. (This is the weirdest way to report court proceedings. Why don't they televise it and have done with it?)

2.57pm: Sarah Saunders, a restaurant designer and friend of Assange, signs document offering £150,000 as surety, writes Vikram Dodd from the court. She says it is almost all the money she has.

2.51pm: It looks likely that Assange will be granted bail, Vikram Dodd predicts from the court.

He adds: "Over £200,000 offered in surety for bail. Court told ten international public figures also offering surety. Court asks one of them to sign [bail] document."

2.46pm: Vaughan Smith, from the Frontline club, has been put forward as someone offering surety. As expected Assange's barrister Geoffrey Robertson says an electronic tag could be placed on Assange if he is bailed. He also offers a curfew, and travel restrictions, according to Mostrous.

Robertson jokes that Assange would be under "mansion arrest" if he was bailed to Vaughan Smith's house, Mostrous tweets.

2.34pm: Unfortunately we can't set up an automatic feed for Alexi Mostrous's Twitter feed. Unlike Heather he works for someone else.

Here's his three latest tweets:
pros counsel: "The court has already found that mr Assange is a flight risk and its submitted that nothing has changed"
Judge says: "the stronger the case, the more likely the defendant is to abscond, the weaker the case, the less likely."
Pros counsel says: "In bail applications under extradition act strength of evidence ought not to be primary focus."

2.30pm: This will save lots of fiddly blogging. You can now read Heather Brooke's tweets from court on the right hand side of this post.

2.28pm: Tweeting in court, there's an article on that. Siobhain Butterworth, the Guardian's former Readers' editor writes:

Since there isn't a statutory ban on creating text by means of electronic devices, it surprises me that journalists and bloggers haven't already lobbied British judges about reporting directly from the courtroom.

And lo it came to pass.

2.23pm: The Guardian's Vikram Dodd, who also made it inside, writes:

Court number one is packed, with so much press interest, special permission was given for people to stand. Assange entered at 2.12pm, wearing black jacket and white shirt. He greeted his lawyer Mark Stephens.

2.16pm: Assange has appeared at the court, according to Mostrous.

#assange walks in, same suit as last time, smart cropped grey hair, whispering to Mark Stephens through the glass

The judge has apologised for the size of the court.

Heather Brook tweets: Julian #assange in the dock. Looking more ashen then last week, wearing navy suit, open white shirt.

2.09pm: While the hearing continues home secretary Theresa May was asked about Julian Assange at the home affairs select committee. She said she has had no representations from the US over Assange.

2.06pm: Has a judge ever allowed journalist to tweet court proceedings before?

1.52pm: Several journalists are tweeting proceedings, including Heather Brook @newsbrooke, who writes: "Swedish team with prosecutor gemma lindfield have just sat down in #assange extradition".

Here are a couple of others:

@AlexiMostrous: "Bianca Jagger sitting as probable surety next to Helena Kennedy".

@jimsciuttoABC "Courtroom fact of the day: in UK, sketch artists have to draw to memory. Can't even sketch in ct here"

1.49pm: The judge has given reporters permission to Tweet proceedings, according to Alexi Mostrous from the Times. But only "if it's quiet and doesn't disturb anything".

1.41pm: Assange's new barrister Geoffrey Robertson has also arrived at the court. He had to bang on the door to get in, according to ABCs Jim Sciutto.

Sciutto also tweets that he hasn't seen this many journalists at a trial since Saddam Hussein's . Now there's name dropping for you.

1.36pm: Journalists appear to be outnumbering protesters outside the court. There are only 30 protesters in Horseferry Road, Sam Jones estimates.

Julian Assange Appears At Court To Fight Extradition Move

A protester is removed by police from the front of Westminster Magistrates Court before WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's bail hearing in London Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

1.26pm: My colleague Vikram Dodd managed to catch a word with film director Ken Loach before he went into the court.

Loach said he would provide surety of £20,000 for Assange and added that at least six or seven other people would do the same. He said Assange deserved to be released today. "If there is any justice he must do," Loach said.
"The evidence against Assange seems very flimsy. The more worrying thing is the political intrigue behind the scenes," he added.
Other celebs and notables spotted at the court include Bianca Jagger, Henry Porter, and Tariq Ali.

1.18pm: Back at the court the socialite Jemima Khan has arrived, as has Fatima Bhutto, the niece of the former prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto. Jemima Khan explained why she is backing Assange in an article in last Sunday's Observer.

Ken Loach and John Pilger have also turned up, according to an eagle-eyed Sam Jones.

1.14pm: Salon's Glenn Greenwald gives us the heads up on a troubling-sounding story.

A major story brewing is the cruel, inhumane treatment - torture - to which Bradley Manning is being subjected: more to come shortly.

1.07pm: Josh Halliday has the latest on the hacking front.

He reports that Assange's prison statement about Visa, MasterCard and PayPal could escalate "crippling web attacks on multinational companies".
Michael Moore

12.39pm: The US filmmaker Michael Moore has offered $20,000 in surety as part of Assange's growing bail fund. In a post for the Daily Kos he explains why:

Yesterday, in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, the lawyers for WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange presented to the judge a document from me stating that I have put up $20,000 of my own money to help bail Mr. Assange out of jail.
Furthermore, I am publicly offering the assistance of my website, my servers, my domain names and anything else I can do to keep WikiLeaks alive and thriving as it continues its work to expose the crimes that were concocted in secret and carried out in our name and with our tax dollars.
We were taken to war in Iraq on a lie. Hundreds of thousands are now dead. Just imagine if the men who planned this war crime back in 2002 had had a WikiLeaks to deal with. They might not have been able to pull it off. The only reason they thought they could get away with it was because they had a guaranteed cloak of secrecy. That guarantee has now been ripped from them, and I hope they are never able to operate in secret again.
So why is WikiLeaks, after performing such an important public service, under such vicious attack? Because they have outed and embarrassed those who have covered up the truth. The assault on them has been over the top.

Should that be £s? All the celebs last week, including Jemima Khan, John Pilger and Ken Loach were offering £20,000.

12.34pm: Police officers have dragged one protester from outside court to the other side of Horseferry Road where a demo of a handful of people is gathered, Sam emails.

Reporters are being told they will have to wait another 30 minutes before they are allowed inside the court, he adds.

12.25pm: Assange's supporters have turned up at the court. One of the is holding up a placard that reads: "sex crimes, my arse!" Thanks to Sam Jones for that snippet.

12.19pm: The freedom of information campaigner Heather Brooke continues to provide an entertaining Twitter commentary on events outside the court. You can follow her @newsbrooke

Here's a selection:
#assange's mom Christine has just arrived in court. Same build as her son. Almost identical shoes and outdoorsy style. #wikileaks
Anyone doubting #wikileaks isn't a cult of #assange personality needs to see the phalanx of cameras here. Like Cannes wtg for the starlet.
lawyers mark stephens and jennifer robinson have arrived into court. This is such a mad spectacle; court bureaucrats not helping.

12.09pm: Time for a summary:

• Julian Assange has returned to City of Westminster magistrates court to appeal for bail. His lawyers are expected to offer a permanent UK address and suggest using an electronic tags to persuade the court to grant him bail.
• In a statement from his prison cell Assange criticised Visa, MasterCard and PayPal as instruments of US foreign policy. He also said his treatment had strengthened his convictions and determination. The statement was released through Assange's mother Christine, who is at the court to support her son.
• Whitehall is preparing for a possible cyber attack against government websites. RBS, one of the subjects of today's cable disclosures, reported problems with its website. It is unclear if this connected with hacking.
• Assange continues to enjoy widespread popular support. He topped the readers' poll in Time's person of the year contest, and almost half of Britons believe the charges against him are an excuse to keep in custody, according to a CNN poll.

12.08pm: Assange's mum Christine has just arrived at the court, Sam Jones says.

11.56am: Assange's lawyers, Mark Stephens and Jennifer Robinson, have just arrived at the court, according to Sam Jones. They entered without talking to reporters, he said.

Wikileaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange arrives at Westminster magistrates court inside a prison van with tinted windows, 14 December 2010. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

11.43am: Here's a fantastic new picture of Julian Assange tapping his nose from inside that prison van.

The Daily Mail is appalled (again):

Assange even pokes fun at the establishment from his prison van as he prepares for court.
With a telling tap of the finger, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gives the impression that he knows what's going on even when being transported in a prison van.
The 39-year-old Australian was photographed in the back of the vehicle while being ferried to City of Westminster Magistrates' Court from his Wandsworth Prison cell.

He might just be scratching his eye.

11.28am: Gideon Rachman, a late convert to the WikiLeaks cables, argues that Assange should be given a medal by the Americans, for "debunking decades-old conspiracy theories about its foreign policy".

Writing in the FT he says:

The documents published over the past fortnight have provided very little evidence of double-dealing or bad faith in US foreign policy. Conspiracy theorists all over the world must be deeply disappointed.

What about the US spying on the UN?

Even some of the officials who might have been spied upon do not seem terribly outraged – since they assume that espionage from all quarters is an unfortunate fact of diplomatic life.

That's all right then.

11.21am: RBS has issued a very brief statement on the problems with its website. For what it's worth, here it is:

We are aware of an issue affecting some online banking customers and we are working to resolve this as soon as possible.
We apologise to affected customers for any inconvenience this has caused.

No mention of any hacking.

11.16am: BBC News is showing footage of the police van turning up at the court. It is unclear when this occurred. Photographers were there to capture the moment by taking pictures through the tinted glass (see above).

11.10am: Freedom of information campaigner Heather Brooke is not impressed with the press facilities at the court. She tweets:

11.07am: A new picture of Assange on his way to the court has emerged. It is currently at the top of the blog.

11.01am: Sam Jones describes the international media scrum that has already gathered outside City of Westminster magistrates court.

To listen to the full audio turn off autorefresh at the top of the page

10.46am: You Ask: We Search update. Today's front page story about the Madeleine McCann investigation started as a question from a reader.

We've been answering lots more queries on a number of subjects including the the 2012 Olympics, Roman Polanski and the Dutch far right. We've had close to 1,500 suggestions so far (a lot from the Netherlands) and are in the process of prioritising and investigating them. Please tweet further suggestions to @GdnCables.

10.37am: WikiLeaks supporters are planning a protest outside the court today.

The Justice for Assange campaign is urging supporters to show up wearing Julian Assange facemasks.

Its Facebook page says: Julian Assange will be appearing at court for an Extradition Hearing & bail application please come and make your voice heard!

10.20am: RBS has confirmed that there are currently problems with its website. It says users are having trouble transferring funds between accounts on the site. The bank has played down the problems and insists that the site is not being hacked.

So at this stage, the bank is insisting, that it is entirely coincidental that news of the problems occurred on day of WikiLeaks disclosures about RBS.

More follows later...

10.16am: As well as passing on that note from her son, Christine Assange has been speaking out against the Australian government's attitude to Julian.

To watch the full video turn off the autorefresh button at the top of the page

9.54am: Almost half of Britons believe that the sex charges against Assange are "an excuse" to keep him in custody so that the US government can prosecute him for releasing secret diplomatic cables, according to a poll by CNN.

The CNN poll of British opinion finds that 44% of respondents in Great Britain believe that Sweden's sex charges are just a pretext, while only 13% flatly disagree. The remaining 43% say they don't know...
More people agree than disagree that WikiLeaks was right to release the cables, by 42% to 33%. The remainder, 25%, don't have a position.

9.37am: Julian Assange topped the readers poll in Time's person of the year for 2010, the magazine has announced.

Julian Assange raked in 382,020 votes, giving him an easy first place. He was 148,383 votes over the silver medalist, Recep Tayyip Ergodan, prime minister of Turkey.

The current issue of the magazine features an interview with Assange, which the magazine sent to him in Wandsworth prison.

Assange's lawyer Mark Stephens said he wasn't allowed to see it. Stephens told the Guardian:

Time magazine sent him a copy of the magazine with him on the cover and they censored it not just by ripping off the cover but by destroying the whole magazine.

9.31am: The speaker of the Hungarian parliament has called for controls on online news reporting to stop "information terrorism".

According to Politics.hu Laszlo Kover said:

"Given the leak of the documents was intentional it must be called information terrorism... It is necessary to devise a method to prevent similar cases in the future."

9.18am: An online dating profile apparently posted by Julian Assange has been seized on by the New York Daily Post.

The profile, on the site OK Cupid, is posted under the name Harry Harrison. It says: "Passionate, and often pig headed activist intellectual seeks siren for love affair, children and occasional criminal conspiracy."

The Post is convinced the profile was set up by Assange. It memorably headlines the article: "Lonely blond leaker seeks hottie".

8.48am: At last week's court hearing the nomadic Assange was reluctant to give an address. First he gave a PO box address and then an address in Australia. The Frontline Club later revealed that Assange had spent much of the last few months based at the club.

The lack of a permanent UK address is one reason he wasn't granted bail.

But today his lawyers will offer a permanent UK address, according to a tweet from the Times' Alexi Mostrous.

The lawyers will also suggest that an electronic tag be placed on Assange to help secure bail, Mostrous said.

7.53am: There's no let up on the WikiLeaks news front with another busy day in store and lots more leaked cables. The main item on the agenda is Julian Assange's appeal to be granted bail. He is due to return to City of Westminster magistrates at around 2pm with a new barrister - Geoffrey Robertson.

He faces extradition to Sweden where he is accused of sexually assaulting two women. If Assange is denied bail a second time he is expected to appeal at the high court.

Our legal affairs correspondent, Afua Hirsh, examines the "mockery of extradition". She asks:

Why can our prisons detain someone (Assange is currently on remand in Wandsworth prison) for an offence under Swedish law that does not exist in British law? And how can a judge agree to an extradition without having enough evidence to make out a prima facie case?

Whitehall is preparing for a possible cyberattack against government websites which could coincide with Assange's court appearance, according to the Independent.

Meanwhile, Assange has sent a message to the world ... via his mum.

The Australian news site Seven News boasts a "world exclusive" with Assange's first statement since he was locked up last week.

The statement was passed to the station by Julian's mother Christine who travelled to Britain to visit her son.
Assange's statement said:

My convictions are unfaltering. I remain true to the ideals I have always expressed.
These circumstances shall not shake them. If anything, this process has increased my determination that they are true and correct.
We now know that Visa, Mastercard and Paypal are instruments of US foreign policy. It's not something we knew before.
I am calling on the world to protect my work and my people from these illegal and immoral acts.

The latest cables reveal:

• The UK made "little progress" in reaching out to Muslim communities despite investing "considerable time and resources" after the 7/7 London bombings in 2005.

• British police helped to "develop evidence" against Madeleine McCann's parents as they were investigated by Portuguese police as formal suspects in the disappearance of their daughter, according to the US ambassador to Portugal.

• RBS chairman Sir Philip Hampton said the board of the bank breached their "fiduciary responsibilities" by allowing the takeover of the Dutch bank ABN Amro.

• The Bank of England governor, Mervyn King, was so worried about the health of the banks that he proposed a secret international fund to recapitalise them six months before the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

• US officials expressed doubts in October 2008 over whether Ireland appreciated how much trouble its banks were in.

You can follow all the previous disclosures and reaction on our other live blogs about the cables. And for full coverage go to our US embassy cables page or follow our US embassy cable Twitter feed @GdnCables.

And please keep sending us your You Ask:We Search suggestions.

Simply tweet @GdnCables with the information you're interested in. We're working with a search engine, remember, so it would help greatly if you could give us:
• Search terms
• Rough dates (the main archive runs from 2005 to Feb 2010)
• The likely embassy involved ( eg 'Moscow', or 'Kampala')

So you might say @gdncables Oil Spills June 2003 Angola. Our resources aren't infinite - but we'll do our best, so please be a little patient!

Total fiasco at court today for assange #wikileaks hearing. No recording allowed or space for world's press.less than a minute ago via twidroid

Heather Brooke
newsbrooke

new internet age? Security guard: "phones off, unless you take notes with blackberry [paraphrased] in which case away you go". #wikileaksless than a minute ago via Twitterrific

Alexi Mostrous
AlexiMostrous

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