Who can you trust?

Anyone else disillusioned with Julian Assange?

First he refuses to go to Sweden to face, not arrest but questioning over a rape charge. The argument is, this wouldn't be rape in another jurisdiction. Not much of an argument in my opinion: even if we don't like other people's laws, we still have to obey them - or face extradition if we don't.

Then he takes refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy. This is run by a government that is not exactly a beacon of human rights. By going there two months ago, he has jumped bail, thus letting the supporters who put up his bail money lose their cash.

He claims he's gone to the Ecuadorian embassy because he believes the Swedish legal authorities will hand him over to the USA and he will face charges there leading to the death penalty. This despite repeated assurances from the Swedish and EU authorities that they do not hand people over to any jurisdiction that has the death penalty.

Meanwhile, what's happened to Wikileaks? This is - or was - a really important website which posted information that governments didn't want us to see on a whole range of issues and in a whole raft of countries. I would even say that Wikileaks has led indirectly to the revelations of phone-hacking by UK newspapers of recent months, not to mention the renewed focus on parliamentary allowances and the behaviour of rogue bankers. But now Wikileaks has become the Julian Assange show, it has quite simply stopped doing its job. When was the last time Wikileaks - as opposed to Assange - was reported in national or international media?

By taking the action I've described above, has Assange not allowed the governments that wanted to silence Wikileaks to win?

If there's a valid defence out there for Assange's actions, I want to hear them.