Despite being under house arrest in England and facing sex-crime charges in Sweden that could see him extradited in the months ahead, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will seek a seat in the Australian Senate in an upcoming election.

Australian political scientist John Wanna predicted that Assange would lose the race because he lacks the backing of a major political party, but his high profile could win him as much as 4 percent of the vote in his nominated state. –ARK

The Huffington Post:

“We have discovered that it is possible for Julian Assange to run for the Australian Senate while detained. Julian has decided to run,” WikiLeaks announced on Twitter.

Assange has criticized Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s center-left government for not standing up for him against the potential threat of his extradition to the United States for prosecution over WikiLeaks’ release of hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. documents.

Australian police have concluded that WikiLeaks and Assange have not broken any Australian laws by publishing the U.S. cables, although Gillard has condemned the action as “grossly irresponsible.”

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