Probe against Wikileaks’ founder begins, sex assault charge dropped
By DPA, IANSWednesday, August 25, 2010
STOCKHOLM - A Swedish prosecutor opened a formal investigation into an assault complaint against controversial Wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange Wednesday.
A probe into sexual assault was dropped, and allegations by a second woman of rape by Assange are not being pursued, judicial affairs spokeswoman Eva Finne said.
Saturday an arrest warrant against Assange for the alleged rape was withdrawn. It had been issued last Friday, after two women in Sweden went to police, saying they initially had consensual sex with Assange, which in one case turned into rape and in the other to sexual assault.
Assange had been in Sweden as part of the publication of leaked Pentagon papers relating to the Afghan conflict.
WikiLeaks shot to prominence in July, after the internet site, which campaigns for freedom of information, published thousands of classified US documents relating to the conduct of the war in Afghanistan.
Assange has previously rejected the accusations by e-mail, and spoke of “dirty tricks” by those who did not agree with WikiLeaks publishing sensitive documents.
