Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, has been arrested in London on charges of sexual assault in Sweden, according to reports on Sky News.
Assange denies any wrongdoing, and his lawyer has branded the arrest a “political stunt” in reponse to WikiLeaks’ release of sensitive US Embassy documents. Two women say they were sexually assaulted by Assange when he visited Sweden in August.
Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, was called a London police station, after the British police received a valid European Arrest Warrant.
He was arrested and will appear before a district judge at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court this morning.
“Officers from the Metropolitan Police Extradition Unit have this morning arrested Julian Assange on behalf of the Swedish authorities on suspicion of rape,” said a police statement. An earlier warrant was not filled in correctly.
WikiLeaks released 250,000 documents leaked from US Embassies last month, shedding light on issues including a cyber-attack on Google which originated in China.
The WikiLeaks site has been hit by denial of service attacks, but anti-censorship groups have rallied to its support. The Swiss Pirate Party helped host the site’s domain after its domain name service provider withdrew support.
The Anonymous group, better known for attacks on intellectual property organisations and the music industry, has begun reprisals against organisations which are cutting off WikiLeaks’ funding, including PayPal and Swiss bank PostFinance.
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Whether these allegations are true obviously remain to be seen. The wikileaks cables serve as an example for businesses who may be complacent with their information. For many organisations, such revelations of private correspondences and files would be hugely detrimental. Therefore consideration of implementing security policies is necessary http://bit.ly/gG5thD.