Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has been arrested by British police over allegations of sex crimes in Sweden, police have said. The 39-year-old Australian handed himself in to a London police station at about 09:30 GMT on Tuesday, where he was detained under a European Arrest Warrant.
"He is accused by the Swedish authorities of one count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of rape, all alleged to have been committed in August 2010," police said in a statement. He is due to appear before City of Westminster Magistrates Court in London later on Tuesday, where a date for an extradition hearing is likely to be set.
Mark Stephens, one of Assange's lawyers, said that Sweden appeared to have been manipulated by the US, which has been angered by WikiLeaks latest release of classified documents. "The question is, are the Swedes being manipulated by a third party actor or is there any improper interference?" he said in an interview with Al Jazeera. He added that the Swedish prosecutor had not told Assange what the nature of the allegations are or what the evidence is against him.
"I have to say, the way you have a prosecutor from Sweden, the most civilised country ordinarily, who isn't complying with her obligations under the United Nation's requirements for prosecutors, who's not complying with Swedish law ... then you have to start asking yourself ... whether there is some other motivation going on here, which is the unseen hand."
Also see WikiLeaks US embassy cables: live updates on The Guardian
and read: Don't shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths by Julian Assange himself on The Australian
and Revealed: Assange ‘rape’ accuser linked to notorious CIA operative on The Raw Story