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Interpol issues arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder

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Interpol on Tuesday issued an arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange over rape allegations.

Interpol posts wanted notice for WikiLeaks founder

Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, holds a news conference at the Geneva Press Club in Geneva, in this November 4, 2010 file photograph. The US State Department's top lawyer urged Assange in a letter on Nov 27, 2010 to keep classified documents off the website, remove records of them from its database and return any material to the US Government.

The France-based international police organization issued a "red notice" for Assange -- the equivalent of putting him on its most-wanted list -- after Sweden issued an arrest warrant for him as part of a drawn-out rape investigation.

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Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, came to Sweden in August seeking to stay because his website servers are in the country. However, his application was denied in October. During his stay, he was accused of raping and molesting two women.

Assange, a former computer hacker whose whereabouts are unknown, has denied the allegations.

He said the allegations are a smear campaign by the Pentagon against him because he released thousands of classified U.S. war reports from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Court documents filed by prosecutors allege that Assange is suspected of raping and sexually molesting a woman in the town of Enkoping. He also was suspected of the sexual molestation and unlawful coercion of a second woman in Stockholm.

The two women attended a seminar held by Assange and six days later, they both launched the allegations, the court document said.

A Stockholm prosecutor immediately started a rape investigation, but the case was dropped the next day.

WikiLeaks has recently published an unprecedented 400,000 classified U.S. documents on the Iraq war and posted 77,000 secret U.S. files on the Afghan conflict in July.

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