THE INTERNATIONAL police umbrella body, Interpol, has added WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to its ‘red notice’ list of most wanted people – but the move is not related to the release of classified US embassy cables.

Instead, Assange (39) is wanted for “sex crimes” on foot of an arrest warrant issued in Sweden almost two weeks ago, which has yet to be enforced as Assange’s immediate whereabouts remain unknown.

Swedish prosecutors said a court in Stockholm had granted a warrant for the arrest in relation to charges of “rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion”, based on an incident alleged to have happened in mid-August when he had travelled there on WikiLeaks business, hoping to benefit from Sweden’s strict laws protecting the rights of journalists.

Though the move does not amount to a global arrest warrant, it means that national police forces are instructed to keep watch for the subject, “view with a view to their arrest and extradition”.

Assange does not deny having sex with either of the two women, but has remained adamant that the encounters were entirely consentual. He had originally been arrested in connection with the acts, but the charges were later dropped.

His London-based lawyer has said his client had “repeatedly offered to be interviewed, first in Sweden, and then in the U.K. – including at the Swedish Embassy – either in person or by telephone, video conferencing or e-mail.”

He had also offered to make a sworn statement on affadavit.

Assange’s mother Christine, meanwhile, has told radio in his homeland of Australia that she doesn’t “want him hunted down and jailed.

“I’m distressed,” she said, Sky News reports. “A lot of stuff that’s written about me and Julian is untrue.”

If arrested anywhere within the EU, Assange would almost immediately be extradited back to Sweden to face the charges there. Earlier this week, after the site was targeted by a ‘direct denial of service’ attack, it was moved to a cloud-based server with some facilities in Ireland.

Earlier today, the first Irish memo of the Cablegate documents showed that the Irish government privately defended the use of Shannon Airport by US air facilities while it publicly tried to regulate the use.