The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 25 August 2012

issue 25 August 2012

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After being granted asylum by Ecuador, Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, addressed a crowd of supporters from a balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy, to which he had fled in June to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faces questioning over allegations of sexual assault. The Foreign Office had annoyed Ecuador by drawing attention to the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987, which might allow police to enter the embassy to arrest Mr Assange. George Galloway, the Respect party MP, said that what Mr Assange was accused of ‘might be really sordid and bad sexual etiquette, but whatever else it is, it is not rape’. Asil Nadir was found guilty on three counts of theft totalling £5.5 million by a jury at the Old Bailey; the former Polly Peck tycoon had fled to north Cyprus in 1993 and returned voluntarily in 2010. Jackie Powell, the mental health advocate of Ian Brady, the murderer, was arrested and questioned by police investigating a claim that Brady had written a letter giving the location of the grave of Keith Bennett, killed in 1964, aged 12.

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