The Swedish Prosecution Authority said on Wednesday it would reopen a rape investigation against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Marianne Ny, Director of Public Prosecution, has made the decision on the request for a review of the case.

"Considering information available at present, my judgment is that the classification of the crime is rape. The basis for further considerations is not sufficient at the moment. More investigations are necessary before a final decision can be made," she said in a statement.

Ny also decided to expand the ongoing sexual molestation investigation to include all allegations continued in the original police report.

"There is reason to believe that a crime has been committed. Based on the information available, the crimes in question come under the heading of sexual coercion and sexual molestation, respectively," she said.

Swedish Prosecution Authority issued the warrant on August 20 based on "one report of rape and one report of molestation." But it canceled the warrant one day later, saying the rape suspicion against him was unfounded.

The 39-year-old Australian was in Sweden two weeks ago to discuss his work and defend his intent to publish further documents on the war in Afghanistan.

He spent time with one of the alleged women victims at an apartment in Stockholm on Saturday night, and met the other women in the nearby town of Enkoping, according to local newspapers.

WikiLeaks published thousands of classified documents relating to the conduct of the war in Afghanistan last month. It plans to release a further batch of 15,000 documents on the Afghan war within weeks.

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