Julian Assange: WikiLeaks founder hits out at rape smears as Swedish warrant for his arrest is withdrawn

Julian Assange's supporters are quick to point the finger at American intelligence agencies and say they were expecting slurs after he posted 77,000 Afghanistan war documents online

Jamie Doward and Tracy McVeigh
The Observer, Sunday 22 August 2010

"Julian Assange, the secretive founder of WikiLeaks, the website behind the biggest leak of US military documents in history, was the subject of conspiracy theories last night after prosecutors withdrew a warrant for his arrest in connection with rape and molestation allegations.....

Assange claimed he was the victim of a smear campaign. He denied the charges on WikiLeaks's Twitter page, saying they were "without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing"......

Gavin MacFadyen, director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism, and a friend of Assange, said: "A lot of us who had any notion of what he was doing expected this sort of thing to happen at least a week ago. I'm amazed it has taken them this long to get it together. This is how smears work. The charges are made and then withdrawn and the damage is done.".....

Assange had been in Sweden, home to some of WikiLeaks's internet servers, to oversee the release of thousands more classified documents relating to US military operations.

Last week he announced at a press conference in Stockholm that his website was set to publish a final batch of 15,000 documents on the war in Afghanistan in "a couple of weeks".

"It seems an unusual time to embark on a career of multiple rape," said Guardian journalist David Leigh, who has worked closely with Assange over the recent WikiLeaks Afghanistan documents. "He certainly didn't come across as a violent man, not in the least. Julian was clearly preparing to release more sensitive documents."......."