A WARRANT HAS been issued in Sweden for the arrest of the Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, on suspicion of rape and molestation.

The warrant was issued late on Friday, according to spokesperson for the Swedish prosecutor’s office, Karin Rosander. Under Swedish law, Assange was able to be arrested ‘in absentia’, as police have been unable to reach him.

The Twitter page of the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks – which has leaked incendiary Afghan war documents – quoted Assange as saying the charges were “without basis”.

Julian Assange: the charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing.

In a series of other messages posted on the Wikileaks Twitter feed, the whistle-blowing website said: “No-one here has been contacted by Swedish police” and said it had been warned to expect “dirty tricks”.

The Pentagon recently called for Wikileaks to hand over 15,000 unpublished documents.

On its Twitter page, Wikileaks pointed out that the paper which first broke news of the rape allegation, Expressen, is a tabloid and accused it of “dirty tricks’.

The newspaper claims that the rape allegations arose after two women aged between 20 and 30, who know each other, visited the police.  One of the alleged assaults is reported to have taken place in Stockholm; the other in Enköping. The paper quotes a source in the prosecutor’s office as saying:

[The] women are terrified and dare not participate. The police believe that in this case, [it is] the offender’s position of power that women are afraid of. This raises issues for the police and prosecutor.