WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Monday he has been unfairly labelled a rapist, but his current fight against extradition to Sweden will reveal those accusations to be false.
Assange was speaking to the public and members of the media after a court appearance in London, where he was fighting his extradition to Sweden to face sex assault allegations.
Assange has been accused of sexual misconduct against two women he met in Stockholm last year.
"For the past five-and-a-half months we have been in a condition where a black box has been applied to my life and on the outside of that black box has been written the word 'rape,'" Assange said.
"That box is now, thanks to an open court process, being opened. I hope over the next day we will see that that box is in fact empty and has nothing to do with the words that are on the outside of it."
Assange's lawyer argued Monday his client should not be extradited to Sweden to face the allegations because he would face a secret trial that violates international standards of fairness.
Lawyer Geoffrey Robertson noted in a London court Monday that Swedish rape trials are customarily held in secret, to protect the alleged victims.
He argued that closed-door hearings would be "a flagrant denial of justice ... blatantly unfair, not only by British standards but by European standards and indeed by international standards."
Assange denies any wrongdoing.
Robertson questioned the allegation facing his client, noting that in Swedish, the accusation is known as "minor rape."
"That is a contradiction in terms," Robertson said. "Rape is not a minor offence."
The lawyer representing Sweden, Clare Montgomery, opened her case by dismissing these arguments.
Montgomery insisted the Swedish offence of minor rape "contains the core element of rape ... the deliberate violation of a woman's sexual integrity through penetration."
She also argued that the rape allegation was an extraditable offence even under Sweden's broad definition of the crime.
Assange's lawyers claim the Swedish prosecution is politically motivated. Assange's WikiLeaks has released hundreds of secret government cables in recent months, and promises to publish hundreds of thousands more before they are finished.
Assange's lawyers say their client should not be sent to Sweden because the country is likely to then extradite him to the U.S.
"There is a real risk that, if extradited to Sweden, the U.S. will seek his extradition and/or illegal rendition to the USA, where there will be a real risk of him being detained at Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere," read the preliminary arguments documents released by Assange's defence team.
The document also claims Assange could face the death penalty if sent to the U.S. Under European law, Assange cannot be extradited to a jurisdiction where he could face execution.
Stewart A. Baker, a former official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, says the Swedes would like to have Assange on their own soil for questioning.
"It's one thing to question him, say, in an embassy in the United Kingdom where if they don't like the answers he knows he can walk out," Baker told CTV's Canada AM.
"If they don't like the answers they're getting in Sweden, they can put him in jail. So he's much more likely to give them the information they want and to co-operate if he faces the prospect that he'll be put in jail for failure to co-operate."
With reports from the Associated Press
