The founder of the WikiLeaks website has blamed the Pentagon for a false rape charge levelled at him over the weekend.
Senior US officials dismissed the allegations made by Julian Assange, the founder of the whistle-blower website, even as he responded with a claim that the bizarre and short-lived rape case was precisely the kind of smear tactic that he had been told to expect.
Mr Assange, an Australian, said he had no direct evidence of an intelligence operation against him but that unnamed sources in Australian intelligence had warned him on August 11 to be on his guard.
A spokeswoman for Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said last night the department did not comment on intelligence matters.
A warrant was issued for Mr Assange’s arrest in Sweden on Friday after one woman claimed he had raped her and another woman said she had been sexually assaulted by him. The warrant was withdrawn on Saturday by Sweden’s chief prosecutor.
While the rape claim has been dismissed by authorities, that of sexual assault is still being investigated — even though the accuser said she gave her statement “as a support statement” to the other woman’s story.
Swedish authorities are thought to have become suspicious on Saturday morning when it became clear that the anonymous allegations had been made first to tabloid newspapers and only later to police.
Mr Assange infuriated the Pentagon last month with the release of more than 70,000 confidential front-line reports on the Afghan war, some of which, The Times found, named Afghan informants, often with details of families and addresses.
Washington has since refused Mr Assange’s request for help in removing such information from a further 15,000 documents that it holds. Critics say the information could help militants to identify sources co-operating with NATO forces and the Pentagon has demanded instead that the papers are returned. WikiLeaks has said it plans to release them.
Geoff Morrell, the chief spokesman for the US Defence Secretary, rejected the theory that the rape and assault charges could have been instigated by the Pentagon. The idea was absurd, he said.
Hours earlier, Mr Assange had insisted in a Swedish interview that he had been told to beware of “honey traps”. He is thought to have met the two women — who later accused him of sexual assault — soon after arriving in Sweden 10 days ago.
Mr Assange told Sweden’s Aftonbladet newspaper yesterday that whoever was behind the accusations had succeeded in damaging him and his organisation. “There have been headlines all over the world about me being under suspicion of rape. That will not go away,” he said.
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