Clive Ponting

Clive Sheridan Ponting (born 13 April 1946) is a former senior civil servant, best known for leaking documents about the sinking of the Belgrano in the Falklands War. He is the author of a number of revisionist books on British and world history.

The 'General Belgrano'

While a senior civil servant at the Ministry of Defence (MoD), Clive Ponting sent two documents to Labour MP Tam Dalyell in July 1984 concerning the sinking of an Argentine navy warship General Belgrano, a key incident in the Falklands War of 1982. Ponting admitted revealing the information and was charged with a criminal offence under Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act of 1911. His defence was that the matter and its disclosure to a Member of Parliament was in the public interest. This was the first case under the Official Secrets Act that involved giving information to Parliament. Although Ponting expected to be imprisoned he was acquitted by the jury. The acquittal came despite the judge's direction to the jury that Ponting's official duty was not to disclose the information, and that "the public interest is what the government of the day says it is". The judge, Sir Anthony McCowan, "had indicated that the jury should convict him." Ponting resigned from the civil service on 16 February 1985.

Julian Assange

Julian Paul Assange (born 3 July 1971) is an Australian computer programmer, publisher and journalist. He is editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, an organisation which he founded in 2006. Subject to extradition to Sweden for legal proceedings, he was granted political asylum by Ecuador in August 2012. He has remained in Ecuador's London embassy and, as of February 2016, he is unable to leave without expectation of arrest.

In February 2016 a UN panel issued a non-binding legal opinion that Assange had been subject to arbitrary detention and should be allowed to walk free and be given compensation. The findings were rejected by UK and Swedish prosecutors, as well as UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Philip Hammond.

Early life

Assange was born in the north Queensland city of Townsville, to Christine Ann Hawkins (b. 1951), a visual artist, and John Shipton, an anti-war activist and builder. The couple had separated before Assange was born.

When he was a year old, his mother married Richard Brett Assange, an actor, with whom she ran a small theatre company. They divorced around 1979, and Christine Assange then became involved with Leif Meynell, also known as Leif Hamilton, a member of the Australian New Age group The Family, with whom she had a son before the couple broke up in 1982. Assange had a nomadic childhood, and had lived in over thirty different Australian towns by the time he reached his mid-teens, when he settled with his mother and half-brother in Melbourne, Victoria.