Julian Assange sought on rape charge

LAST UPDATED 3:24 PM, NOVEMBER 18, 2010

A Swedish court has issued an arrest warrant for WikiLeaks head Julian Assange after failing to persuade him to submit to an interview voluntarily to answer charges of rape, sexual molestation and illegal use of force.

An arrest warrant relating to the allegations, which Assange denies, was issued in August before being dropped, but the case has since been reopened. The charges all relate to alleged incidents in and around Stockholm between August 13 and 18.

Marianne Ny, Sweden's director of prosecutions, sought the arrest warrant.

She said: "The reason for my request is that we need to interrogate him. So far, we have not been able to meet with him to accomplish the interrogations."

Assange's whereabouts are unknown - a sensible state of affairs for a man who has done much to upset Western intelligence services and armed forces.

In July, his whistleblowing website published more than 90,000 classified documents relating to the war in Afghanistan and last month it perpetrated the biggest leak of classified documents in history when it published 400,000 files relating to the Iraq war.

Assange has in the past suggested the Swedish charges, which were brought just a few weeks after the Afghan war leaks, are part of a smear campaign against him conducted by enemies of WikiLeaks.

Sweden is one of the countries where WikiLeaks' servers are based, and Assange has praised the country for offering legal protection to disclosures made on his website. But it looks like his love affair with Stockholm could be over.

Now that the arrest warrant has been granted, Sweden will be yet another country on a fast expanding no-go list for Assange. The US is reportedly building a case aimed at prosecuting Assange for "encouraging theft of government property" and even his native Australia has expressed interest in prosecuting him should any of his leaks endanger members of its armed forces.

So where now? Earlier this month, Assange told Swiss TV station TSR he is considering applying for asylum in Switzerland and moving WikiLeaks' servers there.