Wikileaks founder accused of rape

LONDON - Julian Assange, founder of whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, has been charged with rape and molestation and authorities in Sweden have issued an arrest warrant in this regard.

The warrant was issued late Friday, said Karin Rosander, communications head at Sweden’s prosecutors’ office.

Though Assange’s whereabouts have not been traced, a Wikileaks statement said the charges were “without basis”, the BBC reported Saturday.

An estimated 92,000 secret US military records about the war in Afghanistan were leaked to the media by Wikileaks in July.

Wikileaks said earlier this month that it was preparing to release 15,000 more secret intelligence documents about the Afghan war, leading the Pentagon to warn that it has “already put far too many lives at risk”.

Wikileaks’ statement regarding the arrest warrant appeared on Twitter and was attributed directly to Assange, who said the allegations “at this moment is deeply disturbing”.

“No one here has been contacted by Swedish police,” the message said adding that Wikileaks had been warned to expect “dirty tricks”.