Assange lawyer accuses Washington of 'persecution'

Yahoo – AFP, April 11, 2019

Spanish lawyer Baltasar Garzon, defence coordinator of the Australian editor of
WikiLeaks Julian Assange, said there is "evident political persecution" against his
client (AFP Photo/GABRIEL BOUYS)

Madrid (AFP) - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, arrested in London on a US extradition request, is the target of "political persecution," the man coordinating his defence said Thursday.

"There is evident political persecution which started precisely with the massive publication by WikiLeaks in 2010 of cables and very serious information" which Assange had published, including a trove of classified Pentagon documents detailing alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq," said Spanish lawyer Baltasar Garzon.

"The threats against Julian Assange for political reasons, persecution on the part of the United States, are more current than ever," said Garzon, who also accused Ecuador's president of lying about the reasons behind the revoking of Assange's citizenship of the South American state, acquired in 2017.

Garzon, who has previously described the case against Assange as arbitrary and baseless, is a high-profile human rights investigator who was investigating magistrate when former Chilean doctator Augusto Pinochet was detained in London on a Spanish warrant for extradition to face genocide charges. The British government ultimately rejected extradition on humanitarian grounds in that case.

A video grab taken from AFPTV footage shows WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange 

as he is driven by British police to Westminster Magistrates' Court in central London

on April 11, 2019 (AFP Photo)

British police arrested Assange at the Ecuadoran embassy in London, where he had spent seven years as a recluse, claiming asylum and Ecuadoran nationality, both of which President Lenin Moreno revoked.

A London court hours later found Assange guilty of jumping bail in 2012 while wanted in Sweden on charges of sexual assault which were subsequently dropped.

"We are very concerned because the Ecuadoran government and in particular its president have not told the truth in the published statement" on Assange, said Garzon, adding that Quito's arguments for justifying his loss of citizenship were "false".

The US Justice Department earlier had said Assange, a 47-year-old Australian, faced a federal charge in the US and a jail term of up to five years for "conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified US government computer".

The indictment alleges Assange conspired in March 2010 with Chelsea Manning, a former US Army intelligence analyst, to crack a password stored on Department of Defense computers.

Timeline on #WikiLeaks founder #JulianAssange, after he was arrested by British police on April 11 pic.twitter.com/qlBZQvBrH0

— AFP news agency (@AFP) 11 april 2019

Cambridge Analytica whistleblower calls for online regulation

Yahoo – AFP, November 6, 2018

Canadian whistleblower Christopher Wylie speaks during the annual Web Summit
 technology conference in Lisbon on November 6, 2018 (AFP Photo/PATRICIA DE
MELO MOREIRA)

Lisbon (AFP) - A whistleblower who claimed data consultancy Cambridge Analytica played a role in obtaining data from Facebook users called Tuesday for greater government regulation of social media and online advertising.

"Why is it we can regulate nuclear power, but we can't regulate code" Christopher Wylie, a former director of research at the now-defunct data consultancy, said at the Web Summit, Europe's biggest tech gathering, in Lisbon.

Wylie earlier this year said data from millions of Facebook users was used by Cambridge Analytica without their knowledge to help elect US President Donald Trump -- a claim denied by the company.

In his address at the Web Summit, Wylie also called on data scientists to be subject to an ethical code just as doctors, nurses and teachers are.

"Why is it that as a data scientists, we don't have to think of the ethical and moral implications of what we are doing. I think that is absurd," he said to applause from the audience.

The need for regulation is more urgent given the rise in the number of people using social media, he added.

"People now sleep with their phones more than they sleep with people," Wylie said.

Some 70,000 people are expected to take part in the four-day Web Summit which got underway Monday, including speakers from leading global tech companies, politicians and start-ups hoping to attract investors.

Dubbed "the Davos for geeks", the annual event was launched in Dublin in 2010 and moved to Lisbon six years later.

Assange claims victory after Sweden drops rape probe

Yahoo – AFP, May 19, 2017

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange speaks on the balcony of the Embassy of
Ecuador in London on May 19, 2017 (AFP Photo/Daniel LEAL-OLIVAS)

London (AFP) - Julian Assange claimed victory Friday after Swedish prosecutors dropped a seven-year rape allegation against the WikiLeaks founder, but insisted the "proper war" over his future was only just beginning.

Assange gave a clenched fist salute as he stepped into the daylight on the balcony of Ecuador's London embassy, where he has been holed up since 2012.

But the 45-year-old Australian said the road was "far from over" and declined to reveal whether he would leave the embassy after five years cooped up inside.

British police would arrest him immediately for breaching earlier bail conditions if he left the embassy, while US authorities have warned they regard WikiLeaks as a "hostile intelligence service".

"Today is an important victory," Assange told reporters and a small band of supporters crowded around the tiny balcony, after emerging wearing a black shirt and jacket.

"But it by no means erases seven years of detention without charge. In prison, under house arrest and almost five years here in this embassy without sunlight.

"That is not something that I can forgive. It is not something that I can forget."

Uncertain future

Earlier in Stockholm, Marianne Ny, Sweden's director of public prosecutions, said the rape investigation had been dropped because there was "no reason to believe that the decision to surrender him to Sweden can be executed in the foreseeable future".

"It is no longer proportionate to maintain the arrest of Julian Assange in his absence," she said.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange raises his fist prior to addressing the media on

 the balcony of the Embassy of Ecuador in London on May 19, 2017 (AFP Photo/

Justin TALLIS)

Despite the probe in Sweden being dropped, Assange would still face arrest if he set foot outside the embassy, a flat located just behind the plush Harrods emporium.

Assange jumped British bail by entering the embassy and claiming asylum, saying he feared he would eventually be extradited to the United States.

US justice authorities have never confirmed that they have Assange under investigation or are seeking his extradition.

But US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said last month that "we will seek to put some people in jail", when asked if arresting Assange was a "priority" for Washington.

US prosecutors have been drafting a memo that looks at charges against Assange and WikiLeaks members that possibly include conspiracy, theft of government property and violations of the Espionage Act, according to The Washington Post.

US President Donald Trump's administration has put heat on WikiLeaks after it embarrassed the Central Intelligence Agency in March by releasing files and computer code from the spy agency's top-secret hacking operations.

"While today was an important victory and an important vindication, the road is far from over. The war, the proper war is just commencing," Assange said.

He said his lawyers were in touch with the British authorities and hoped to begin a dialogue about the "best way forward".

And the former computer hacker said that despite the "extremely threatening remarks" emanating from Washington, he was "always ready to engage with the Department of Justice".

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange speaks on the balcony of the Embassy 

of Ecuador in London on May 19, 2017 (AFP Photo/Adrian DENNIS)

The department said Friday it had no comment "at this point" on Assange.

Asked if London would now support a request to extradite Assange to the United States, British Prime Minister Theresa May said: "We look at extradition requests on a case-by-case basis."

Assange's Swedish lawyer, Per Samuelsson, said his client plans to move to Ecuador because "it's the only nation where he is safe".

Decision a 'scandal'

In Sweden, Assange's accuser was left stunned by the prosecutors' decision.

"It is a scandal that a suspected rapist can escape justice and thereby avoid the courts," her lawyer, Elisabeth Fritz, told AFP in an email.

"My client is shocked and no decision to (end the case) can make her change (her mind) that Assange exposed her to rape," she said.

The accusation against Assange dates from August 2010 when the alleged victim, who says she met him at a WikiLeaks conference in Stockholm a few days earlier, filed a complaint.

She accused him of having sex with her -- as she slept -- without using a condom despite repeatedly having denied him unprotected sex.

Assange always denied the allegations, which he feared would lead to him being extradited to the United States and facing trial over the leak of hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents in 2010, which brought WikiLeaks to prominence.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange addresses the media holding a printed report

of the judgement of the UN's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on his case

 from the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in central London on February 5,

2016 (AFP Photo/Niklas Halle'n)

Related Articles:

Assange hails 'victory' from embassy balcony after UN panel ruling

Chelsea Manning prepares for freedom, as a woman

How did Dutch phone calls end up in the hands of an Australian software firm?

DutchNews, September 30, 2016

Private telephone conversations between thousands of Dutch nationals have ended up in the hands of an Australian software company, the Volkskrant said on Friday. 

The conversations were recorded in 2010 and 2011 and the only explanation, telecom experts told the paper, is that they were recorded by British spy service GCHQ. The information was then probably handed over to the Australian company Appen with the aim of improving software for converting speech into text, the paper said. 

The Volkskrant was contacted by a Dutch national who worked for Appen in Britain in 2011. As part of her job, she was required to describe thousands of audio fragments featuring ordinary Dutch people on the phone. 

Many of the calls were between taxi drivers in The Hague but in one call she heard her ex-boyfriend’s voice. He used Vodafone and had not given permission for the company to share his conversations with anyone. 

The Volkskrant says it has email and other evidence to back up the woman’s claim. 

Appen is a technology company that develops software for converting speech into text. 

Vodafone told the Volkskrant it did not ‘collaborate’ with Appen. Appen said in a statement if it does collect data, it does so with the permission of ‘participants’. The company said it does not collaborate with ‘telecom companies’, but declined to answer the question whether this also applies to law enforcement agencies. 

Read the full article, in English

Assange hails 'victory' from embassy balcony after UN panel ruling

Yahoo – AFP, Jacques Klopp, February 5, 2016

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange addresses the media holding a printed report 

of the judgement of the UN's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on his case

 from the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in central London on February 5, 

2016 (AFP Photo/Niklas Halle'n)

London (AFP) - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Friday urged Britain to let him walk free from Ecuador's London embassy after a UN panel found that the anti-secrecy campaigner who faces a rape allegation in Sweden was "arbitrarily detained."

Speaking to a handful of supporters and a media scrum in a rare appearance from the balcony of the embassy where he took refuge nearly four years ago, Assange hailed a "victory of historical importance".

"How sweet it is! This is a victory that cannot be denied," he proclaimed, waving a hard copy of the legal opinion and often seeming emotional.

Assange has refused to go to Sweden for questioning fearing deportation to the US over WikiLeaks' release of 500,000 secret military files on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

A look back at the key dates in the life of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

(AFP Photo/Kun Tian, Thomas Saint-Cricq)

Earlier, the 44-year-old Australian told journalists via video link that it was "now the task of the states of Sweden and the United Kingdom as a whole to implement the verdict".

The UN panel said Assange's detention should end and that he should be able to claim compensation from Britain and Sweden.

But both countries quickly dismissed the non-binding legal opinion, with Britain's Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond calling it "ridiculous".

Assange walked into the embassy in June 2012 to avoid the threat of arrest and extradition to Sweden, where he still faces a rape allegation.

He has lived there ever since in a small office room with a bed, computer, sun lamp, treadmill and access to a small balcony decorated with Ecuador's flag.

Ecuador's Foreign Minister Ricardo 

Patino speaks during a press conference

 in Quito on February 5, 2016 (AFP Photo/

Rodrigo Buendia)

In a statement, the panel said it had adopted an opinion that considered Assange "arbitrarily detained by the governments of Sweden and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."

It added: "The working group also considered that the detention should be brought to an end and that Mr Assange should be afforded the right to compensation."

Fears of imprisonment

Britain and Sweden sharply condemned the panel's findings and said they would change nothing.

Hammond called Assange "a fugitive from justice."

"This is frankly a ridiculous finding by the working group and we reject it," the foreign secretary added.

Sweden's foreign ministry said that it "does not agree" with the assessment.

"Mr Assange is free to leave the embassy at any point and Swedish authorities have no control over his decision to stay at the embassy," the ministry added.

Only three of the five members of the UN panel supported the opinion -- one recused herself because she is Australian, like Assange, and another member disagreed.

British designer Vivienne Westwood displays a British passport after arriving to visit

 Wikileaks founder Julian Assange at Ecuador's embassy in central London, on

February 4, 2016 (AFP Photo/Chris Ratcliffe)

Christophe Peschoux, the working group's secretary, said at a briefing in Geneva that Britain and Sweden had two months to submit new information to force a review, and Britain says it will contest the opinion.

Ecuador's Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said it was "time for both governments... to allow Julian Assange his freedom."

Swedish authorities want to speak to Assange about a rape allegation whose statute of limitations does not expire until 2020.

Elizabeth Fritz, the lawyer for the woman who has accused Assange, criticised the panel's comments.

"That a man who is wanted on an arrest warrant for rape should be awarded compensation for intentionally hiding from the judicial system for more than five years is offensive to my client," she said.

Swedish judicial authorities said last month that Ecuador had refused its request to let a Swedish prosecutor question Assange because Quito wanted an Ecuadorean prosecutor to do the questioning.

British Foreign Secretary Philip

Hammond described the UN panels'

decision on Wikileaks founder Julian 

Assange as "ridiculous" as he 

met journalists in London, on 

February 5, 2016 (AFP Photo/

Niklas Halle'n)

'Publicity stunt'

Assange fears that if he went to Sweden for questioning, he could then be sent to the US and face prison. 

WikiLeaks' activities -- including the release of 500,000 secret military files on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- have infuriated the US.

The main source of the leaks, US Army soldier Chelsea Manning, was sentenced to 35 years in prison for breaches of the Espionage Act.

A hero to supporters and a dangerous egocentric to detractors, the computer programmer and hacker, whose celebrity fans include fashion designer Vivienne Westwood and singer Lady Gaga, founded WikiLeaks in 2006 and has been portrayed in two movies in recent years.

Britain spent over £10 million (12 million euros, $15 million) maintaining a 24-hour guard outside the embassy to immediately arrest Assange if he set foot on British soil, but withdrew it last year.

The Assange case has polarised opinion in Britain and there were many criticisms of his conduct Friday.

The Guardian newspaper, which has in the past worked with WikiLeaks to publish secret documents, used an editorial to condemn the latest developments as "a publicity stunt."

Julian #Assange should be able to walk free and claim compensation, UN panel says: https://t.co/3K7c4d7XKF pic.twitter.com/9WcaQsz7lw

— AFP London (@afplondon) February 5, 2016

Related Article:

Timeline: Julian Assange's story so far

Social media encouraging corruption whistleblowing in China

Want China Times, Xinhua 2015-05-09

Smartphone users in Taiyuan, Shanxi province. (File photo/CNS)

China's use of social media to encourage public tip-offs about corrupt or unprofessional official practices is gaining steam.

In Qinhangdao city of north China's Hebei province, more than 20,000 citizens have used an app launched in August which enables them to report officials' "undesirable work styles" such as bureaucracy and extravagance to the city's discipline watchdog.

Discipline staff have received more than 300 complaints via the app, said an official with the Qinhuangdao Municipal Discipline Inspction Commission of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Authorities have handled over 200 of the cases, punishing 30 officials for offences ranging from driving government cars for personal affairs to organizing extravagant banquets for family weddings or funerals.

"A small mobile phone can help solve a big problem. Every mobile phone is a tool for inquiry and everyone is a supervisor," said Hao Zhanmin, secretary of the commission.

Since late 2012, the new Chinese leadership has launched campaigns against corruption and misconduct among officials. More than 100,000 officials have been punished.

With an increasing number of smartphone users, WeChat and Weibo, both instant messaging services popular in China, have made it easier for the public to expose violators to authorities.

The CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection launched its own mobile application in January.

Whistleblowing channels like apps and WeChat or Weibo platforms have also been adopted among discipline inspection bodies in Beijing as well as Shandong and Zhejiang provinces.

Beijing's discipline inspection watchdog recently opened a WeChat account, publicizing the contact details for six inspection teams.

Social media is not the only technology being used to ensure professionalism among officials. Some judicial bodies have adopted face recognition machines to monitor employees' attendance, in order to curb laziness at the workplace.

"After using the system for some time, the phenomena of arriving at work late and leaving early has been reduced a lot," said Wang Guorui, an official with the Changchun Intermediate People's Court in northeast China's Jilin Province.

The CPC is keeping pace with the times to explore new technological means to help fight corruption or bureaucracy, said Zhu Lijia, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Governance.

IT services group Ordina at centre of corruption scandal: Zembla

DutchNews.nl, Thursday 02 October 2014

HQ of Ordina (NOS/ANP)

Civil servants have given IT company Ordina confidential documents which gave it an unfair advantage in winning government contracts, according to television current affairs show Zembla.

Zembla bases its claims on a whistleblower and a USB stick full of company information, addresses and emails. Most of the items date from 2005 and 2010 and show how business was being done.

For example, a Rotterdam civil servant gave Ordina information about a tendering process for a software project worth tens of millions of euros in 2009. Rotterdam has begun an investigation into the case and suspended one civil servant, Zembla says.

IND

Another project involved a contract for the immigration service. Justice minister Ivo Opstelten has asked the consumer authority ACM to investigate this.

A third case involves a tendering process in Rotterdam which Logica CMG, CapGemini and Ordina divided up the market in agreement with city officials.

The Zembla programme will be broadcast on Thursday night. Professor Chris Jansen told the show there are similiarities between this and the construction sector fraud of 2001.

‘Companies operating in the same sector have made agreements, with or without the knowledge of the government, to divide up contracts between themselves,’ he said.

That scandal also came to light following a whistleblower’s revelations.

Whistleblower phone app seeks to outsmart corruption

Yahoo – AFP, Amy Fallon, 28 Sep 2014

Gerald Businge, the project co-ordinator of Action for Transparency (A4T),

 demonstrating how his anti-corruption app works, in Kampala, Uganda, September 19,

2014 (AFP Photo/Isaac Kasamani)

Kampala (AFP) - Douglas Buule, a teacher at Kiwenda primary, a government school outside Uganda's capital Kampala, has a recurring problem.

"The money used to access the chalk comes late, even towards the end of term," explains Buule. "It is a big burden to keep on writing on a chalk board. So sometimes the head teacher buys chalk on credit or even uses her own money."

Funds arriving late or going missing altogether also mean the school's 529 students usually only take exams twice a term instead of monthly, said the teacher.

Gerald Businge, the project co-ordinator of 

Action for Transparency, demonstrating how

 his anti-corruption app works, September 19, 

2014 (AFP Photo/Isaac Kasamani)

"There is lack of transparency in many government institutions on the funds that are supplied and used," said Buule, complaining of the country's endemic corruption. "That lack of transparency is affecting day-to-day learning."

But now, a new project is shifting the balance of power.

Through the Action for Transparency (A4T) Smartphone app, being piloted in three Ugandan districts, communities are being armed with information allowing them to report anonymously when budget allocations for health centres and schools fail to match public expenditure.

Using the GPS-enabled A4T app, a user can receive the location of a school or health centre, the number of staff allocated to them by both the government and the institution, and the amount of money approved and dispersed.

If they suspect money is being misused -- for example if the government provides funds for an ambulance which then is nowhere to be seen -- the user can simply click on the app's whistle icon to send an instant report to the A4T website and their Facebook page.

"If it is a police case we'll report it to the police," said Moses Karatunga, the programme officer for Transparency International (TI) Uganda. "If it's an advocacy issue we can take it up with the ministry."

Keeping tabs on the cash flow

In the past year, Uganda's corruption rating has deteriorated, according to TI. They are introducing the app along with the Fojo Media Institute, part of Linnaeus University in Sweden, the Uganda Media Development Foundation (UMDF) and the African Center for Media Excellence (ACME).

Gerald Businge, the A4T project coordinator, said Ugandans feared blowing the whistle on corruption.

"They think they could get sacked, they could get victimised," he said. "There is also that worry 'I report and nothing is done.' So we're saying 'take this to the public court'."

President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni address

 the United Nations General Assembly on

 September 24, 2014 in New York. An app is

 helping to tackle corruption in Uganda (AFP

Photo/Andrew Burton)

But it's hoped that through A4T, which has been funded by SIDA, the Swedish International Development Agency, mismanagement of money can be prevented.

"When people know they're being monitored they're less likely to squander or misuse money," said Businge.

Community monitors such as Twahah Musoke visit schools and health facilities in their area a minimum of two times in a quarter. The institutions and facilities can also access the app from the TI representatives.

Already Musoke has been to five schools, including Kiwenda primary, and three health centres in the Busukuma area, home to about 16,000 people, in Wakiso district.

Challenges related to monitoring money include financial committees not knowing how much government money is being sent, and information and money staying with one person, for instance a school headmistress, instead of a team, he said.

"We need to empower people to realise it's their responsibility to access this information," said Musoke.

"If they go and seek the information the administrators of these facilities will be in a position to account for and utilise (the money) the way it's meant to be utilised."

Businge said phones were chosen for the project as "very many Ugandans have mobile phones and at least every family has a mobile phone".

"We're telling people that phones can do much more than what you're already doing," he said.

Right Livelihood Award to Snowden

Moscow-exiled US whistleblower Edward Snowden and British Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger are to receive the Right Livelihood Award. They're among five persons awarded Sweden's "alternative Nobel prize."

Deutsche Welle, 24 Sep 2014

The Stockholm-based Right Livelihood Award Foundation on Wednesday praised Snowden, a former US intelligence agent, for "revealing the unprecedented extent of state surveillance."

Rusbridger was forced to destroy data

It said Rusbridger, the editor in chief of Britain's The Guardian newspaper, also won the award for "responsible journalism in the public interest.

"None of them could have done what they did without the other, " said foundation director Ole von Uexkull.

The announcement, originally set for Thursday, was brought forward, after a leak by Swedish broadcaster SVT.

Foundation denied access

Von Uexkull, the nephew of Jacob von Uexkull who founded the prize in 1980, said all winners had been invited to a December 1 award ceremony in Stockholm.

Discussions on "potential" travel arrangements for Snowden, who remains exiled in Russia, would be held with the Swedish government, von Uexkull said.

He added that the foundation had been denied access to the Swedish foreign ministry's media room, where award ceremonies have been held since 1995.

Three other winners

Snowden, who is wanted by the US for exposing mass data collection by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and Rusbridger are honorary winners, meaning they will not receive the award's customary 500,000 kronor (54,500 euros).

The other three prize winners, named to receive the monetary award, are Pakistani human rights lawyer Asma Jahanger, Sri Lankan rights activist Basil Fernando and US environmentalist Bill McKibbben.

Jahanger is a human rights lawyer who has defended women, children, religious minorities and the poor in Pakistan, the award citation said.

Fernando, originally from Sri Lanka, led the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission for nearly two decades and now serves as its director of policy and programs.

McKibben is founder of 350.org, a grass-roots environmental movement aimed at spurring action to fight climate change.

lpj/kms (dpa, AFP, AP)

Von Uexkull, the nephew of Jacob von Uexkull who founded the prize in 1980, said all winners had been invited to a December 1 award ceremony in Stockholm.

Discussions on "potential" travel arrangements for Snowden, who remains exiled in Russia, would be held with the Swedish government, von Uexkull said.

He added that the foundation had been denied access to the Swedish foreign ministry's media room, where award ceremonies have been held since 1995.

Three other winners

Snowden, who is wanted by the US for exposing mass data collection by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and Rusbridger are honorary winners, meaning they will not receive the award's customary 500,000 kronor (54,500 euros).

The other three prize winners, named to receive the monetary award, are Pakistani human rights lawyer Asma Jahanger, Sri Lankan rights activist Basil Fernando and US environmentalist Bill McKibbben.

Jahanger is a human rights lawyer who has defended women, children, religious minorities and the poor in Pakistan, the award citation said.

Fernando, originally from Sri Lanka, led the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission for nearly two decades and now serves as its director of policy and programs.

McKibben is founder of 350.org, a grass-roots environmental movement aimed at spurring action to fight climate change.

lpj/kms (dpa, AFP, AP)

Tawdry tale of wine, fraud and spying grips Switzerland

Yahoo – AFP, Nina Larson, 15 June 2014

A bizarre scandal is swirling around one of Switzerland's leading wine producers

 after he was arrested last week along with a computer hacker, a detective and

a spy (AFP Photo/Jeff Pachoud)

Geneva (AFP) - A bizarre scandal is swirling around one of Switzerland's leading wine producers after he was arrested last week along with a computer hacker, a detective and a spy.

Dominique Giroud, 43, was taken into custody on Wednesday on suspicion of ordering the hacking of computers belonging to journalists who were investigating him over allegations of fraud.

He has been remanded in custody until July 14. If found guilty, he could be sentenced to up to five years behind bars.

A professional hacker, private detective and Swiss intelligence agent have also been arrested in connection with the case, the Geneva prosecutor's office said Friday.

Giroud, whose company Giroud Vins is based in the southwestern canton of Valais -- Switzerland's largest wine-growing region -- has been dogged by scandals for years.

His reputation has been so tarnished that he has even tried to change the business's name to Chateau Constellation, although it was rejected by regional authorities.

Giroud opened a small-scale business in 1995 with reportedly just 1.5 hectares of vineyards to his name and saw that swell to an estate of around 50 hectares over the next 20 years.

His castle-like winery on the outskirts of Sion, Valais' largest town, opened its doors in 2008 and is reportedly valued at around 15 million Swiss francs ($17 million, 12 million euros).

Giroud claims to sell up to nine million litres of wine each year, and is estimated to rake in around 50 million francs in sales, according to Swiss weekly Le Matin Dimanche.

With his ballooning fortune he sponsored numerous sports clubs across Switzerland, open a restaurant in Singapore and start a chain of Wine Universe stores, the paper reported on Sunday.

'Giroud is Scarface'

The wine producer is also said to be renowned for his ruthless tactics.

"Giroud is Scarface," one unnamed Valais wine industry source told the paper, referring to Al Pacino's hubristic mob boss character in the 1983 movie.

"He thought he was God. He thought he was above everyone," another said, while a third recalled how Giroud liked to brag that he alone could bring down both Switzerland's banking and wine industries if he wanted to.

Swiss authorities opened a tax fraud probe against him in 2011, and two years later demanded he pay 9.54 million Swiss francs in back taxes.

In February this year, national broadcaster RTS reported that he had illegally blended some 350,000 litres of wine between 2006 and 2009, passing it off as pure.

He also tried -- and failed -- to stop two RTS documentaries about his business from being aired last month.

The arrests last week centre on alleged attempts to hack the accounts of journalists at RTS and the Le Temps daily in an apparent bid to find the sources for their reporting on Giroud.

The private detective and the hacker say they carried out the spying on orders from their long-time business associate, the intelligence agent -- also a childhood friend of Giroud -- Le Matin Dimanche reported.

Both the private detective and the hacker reportedly attempted the operation thinking they were acting for the government.

The wine producer's lawyers insist he never gave his blessing to the hacking, while the agent has claimed through his lawyer that he had warned the group it was illegal.