Julian Assange's Extradition Battle is 'Political Frame-Up' Says His Mother

The mother of Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, has claimed that her son's on-going battle against extradition to Sweden is a political frame-up.

Christine Assange made the claim in a radio interview with ABC Brisbane in which she spoke of the distress her son's appeal against extradition has put her and the Assange family through.

"This Australian government is not helping him. All indications are that the case is a political frame-up of my son because of Wikileaks," Ms Assange said, continuing: "This is a political frame-up. The European's arrest warrant is only supposed to be taken out for serious cases like terrorism, major drug trafficking, major human trafficking."

Assange also claimed that her mobile phone is being monitored, resulting in the battery running out far quicker than normal because, she believes, data is being downloaded from it.

When asked if threats have been made against her and her family, Ms Assange replied that "there's been threats to my grandson [son of Julian]. We've had to go into hiding. I have to shred everything that comes out of my bins. We are having to live in secure locations somewhat anonymously."

Julian Assange is due to appear before the Supreme Court in London on 1 February in the final stage of his battle against extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations of rape and sexual assault made by two former volunteers for Assange's website, Wikileaks.

Although Wikileaks is not under any criminal investigation, Ms Assange believes that the authorities are trying to extradite her son to Sweden as the extradition laws there are less strict than in the UK.

"My greatest fear is that this is a holding case - in other words they want him in one place so they can serve a warrant from America to extradite him. It's harder to extradite from the UK than it is from Sweden; if he arrived in Sweden he could be out that night on a plane to America."

Despite the imminent Supreme Court hearing, Ms Assange remains confident that his son has done nothing wrong. "They will have a hard job getting him under espionage because Julian is an award-winning journalist. They can try to get him under criminal conspiracy, but they would have to prove that [Bradley] Manning had colluded with Julian.

"They are shopping around. Wikileaks has broken no law anywhere in the world."

Julian Assange is currently under house arrest and is believed to be living in a friend's country home in Norfolk; he will appear before the Supreme Court on 1 February.