WikiLeaks founder charged with rape, molestation- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, whose whistle-blowing website caused uproar last month with a leak of secret U.S. military files on Afghanistan, is wanted in Sweden on charges of rape and molestation, the National Prosecutor’s Office said on Saturday.
Assange, whose whereabouts are unclear, denied the allegations on WikiLeaks’ Twitter page.“The charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing“.
Assange, an Australian, was in Sweden last week to discuss his work and defend his intent to publish further documents on the war in Afghanistan. He has close contacts in the Nordic country, where WikiLeaks has said it keeps some of its servers.
U.S. officials have called the leak, including more than 70,000 documents detailing the war in Afghanistan, one of the biggest security breaches in U.S. military history.
WikiLeaks promotes the leaking of information to fight government and corporate corruption. Earlier this year, it leaked a classified video showing a 2007 helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Iraq, including two Reuters journalists.
The Pentagon said this month it would be the “height of irresponsibility” if WikiLeaks went through with a new threat to publish outstanding documents it had on the Afghan war.
It wants the site to expunge all classified material from the Internet and return the material it had to the U.S. government.
One good thing about Bush being out of office: we probably won't have to hear liberals rant and rave about how these are trumped up charges designed to silence heroic truth-tellers who dare oppose the Republinazi war machine.
