Fester,
Obviously you have never been to Ireland, the most popular tourist are the British.
Many British people retire to Ireland where they are welcome.
Political strife doesn’t alter the regard that ordinary working people feel for each other, without the support of workers in Britain, Ireland, arguably, would have taken much longer to gain independence.

That Julian was not a US citizen and not in the US when he passed on the files he was given by a US citizen should mean he is not liable.
The crime seems to be that he gave someone secret US files that came
into his possession while not in the US.

Editors of US newspapers are in the same situation but they have not
been charged. Neither have owners of Australian TV stations who published on air the videos that are part of the same files.

Why have Australian editors of newspapers, TV and radio not been
prosecuted ?
I know they committed this crime as I saw the video on TV.

If Assange is innocent, he would have turned himself in 10 years ago, and all this nonsense would have been over and done with.

Julian Assange did offer to be interviewed at the
Swedish Embassy in London or in Scotland Yard when
charges against him were first made back in 2010.
He also gave himself up to the British police and
was taken to an extradition hearing. He was granted bail
by the High Court after his supporters paid 240,000 pounds
in cash and securities.

However a British Court ruled that he should be extradited
to Sweden - and from then things got worse. The man went according
to the letter of the law. Sweden dropped the charges against
him - but the dirty tricks kept up to get him across to the US.
This is a travesty and our PM should put a stop to it going
any further.

I find both David HICKS & Julian ASSANGE curious in their similarity. To my uneducated perspective, both are no-hoper's and do nothing to value add to our great Nation. HICKS was found fraternising with the enemy, and ASSANGE has been accused of having protected documents in his possession, being the intellectual property of the United States. In both instances I'm not entirely sure of their precise allegations/charges.

Can anybody tell me why these two individuals seem to get more support, more sympathy, from the Oz population, than someone else who's infinitely more in need of that emotion? I read somewhere about an Oz woman who' locked up in some Middle Eastern country for some absurd, some spurious charge or other. We hear very little le about her, but plenty on these two?

Interesting-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils_Melzer

http://duckduckgo.com/?q=Melzer+surname&ia=web

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melzer
http://www.hebrewsurnames.com/MELZER
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meltzer