Assange WikiLeaks founder Assange refused bail by UK court |

(Reuters) - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has angered U.S. authorities by publishing secret diplomatic cables, was remanded in custody by a British court on Tuesday over allegations of sex crimes in Sweden.
Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, had earlier handed himself in to British police after Sweden had issued a European Arrest Warrant for him. Assange, who denies the allegations, will remain behind bars until a fresh hearing on December 14.
He has spent some time in Sweden and was accused this year of sexual misconduct by two female Swedish WikiLeaks volunteers. A Swedish prosecutor wants to question him about the accusation.
WikiLeaks, which has provoked fury in Washington with its publications, vowed it would continue making public details of the 250,000 secret U.S. documents it had obtained.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates welcomed news of the arrest. "I hadn't heard that but it sounds like good news to me," Gates told reporters during a trip to Afghanistan.
At a court hearing in London, Senior District Judge Howard Riddle said: "There are substantial grounds to believe he could abscond if granted bail."
He said the allegations were serious, and that Assange had comparatively weak community ties in Britain.
His British lawyer Mark Stephens told reporters a renewed bail application would be made, and that his client was "fine."
"We are entitled to appeal to a higher court, to the High Court, and we are also entitled to go again in the magistrates court at another date," he told reporters.
He said many people believed the prosecution was politically motivated, and that he would be "released and vindicated."
But a Swedish prosecutor was cited in newspaper Aftonbladet as saying the case was a personal matter and was not connected with his WikiLeaks work.
CELEBRITIES OFFER TO STAND SURETY
Assange, dressed in a navy suit and wearing an open-neck white shirt, initially gave his address in court as a PO Box in Australia. Pressed for a more precise address, he gave a street in Victoria, Australia.
Australian journalist John Pilger, British film director Ken Loach and Jemima Khan, former wife of Pakistani cricketer and politician Imran Khan, all offered to put up sureties to persuade the court Assange would not abscond.
Pilger, who offered 20,000 pounds ($31,600), told the court: "These charges against him in Sweden are absurd and were judged absurd by a senior Swedish prosecutor.

THE "only friend" Julian Assange had growing up was the computer his mother bought him at age 13. That machine  later became an "addictive instrument" and saw him convicted for hacking 12 years later, The Australian reported.
New details of the WikiLeaks founder's early life have emerged with the release to The Weekend Australian yesterday of never-before-seen court documents from Mr Assange's 1996 sentencing for 24 computer-hacking-related offences.
The documents reveal that as a young boy living with his mother, Christine, Mr Assange lived like a nomad, constantly moving from home to home as his mother tried to flee from a violent boyfriend who pursued the family across the country for years.

Mr Assange attended at least 12 schools, some for just a few months, making few friends along the way, being taunted as an outcast, and never finishing his Year 12 exams, despite showing exceptional intelligence.
Making submissions on behalf of then 25-year-old Mr Assange, defence lawyer Paul Galbally described the early life of the world's most famous website creator as "really quite tragic".
As an adult, Mr Assange somehow became involved in a computer-hacking network with two other men.
Just 20 at the time, Mr Assange was initially described by the prosecution as being the "ringleader" of the group -- a term later muted down to "the most skilful" of the trio.
Setting out their case before judge Leslie Ross, the lawyer for the prosecution said Mr Assange was not a malicious hacker.
The documents show that in the five years that passed between committing the hacking offences and being sentenced, Mr Assange had taken on the responsibilities of sole parenting and had begun setting up websites.