WikiLeaks founder wanted in Sweden for rape

Australian founder of whistleblowing website, 'WikiLeaks', Julian Assange, speaks to media after giving a press conference in London on July 26, 2010.

STOCKHOLM, Saturday

The founder of the controversial whistleblower website WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, is wanted in Sweden where he has been accused of rape, the prosecutor's office said Saturday.

"Julian Assange is wanted for two different issues, one of them is that he's suspected of rape in Sweden," the director of communications Karin Rosander told AFP.

He was unable to say what the other accusation was or whether the search warrant was international.

According to the Swedish daily Expressen, the 39-year-old Australian is also wanted for assaulting a woman.

Kristinn Hrafnsson, a colleague of Assange's who spoke to AFP from Iceland, said that the charges against him were false.

"He didn't know of the charges until he read them in the right wing tabloid Expressen this morning", Hrafnsson said. "There are powerful organisations who want to do harm to WikiLeaks."

Hrafnsson said Assange was still in Sweden and would "go to the police very quickly."

Last week Assange announced at a press conference in Stockholm that the whistleblower website was set to publish a final batch of 15,000 secret documents on the war in Afghanistan in "a couple of weeks."