theaustralian.com.au | SWEDISH police have issued an international arrest warrant for the Australian founder of WikiLeaks.
Julian Assange is wanted on suspicion of rape and sexual molestation.
"The prosecutor had already decided to issue an international arrest warrant - we made sure that all the police forces in the world would see it," Tommy Kangasvieri of the SwedishNational Criminal Police said yesterday.
Interpol, based in Lyon in eastern France, said it had received an arrest warrant for the extradition of Mr Assange.
Mr Assange's Swedish lawyer, Bjoern Hurtig, filed an appeal against the arrest warrant court order on Friday, but the appeal did not suspend the Swedish order or delay the international warrant.
Mr Assange has been accused of raping one woman in Sweden and sexually molesting another.
He has strongly denied the charges and hinted they could be part of a "smear campaign" against his whistleblower website for publishing classified US documents on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
AFP