Julian Assange, the founder and publisher of WikiLeaks, filed criminal complaints in Germany and Sweden on Monday and Tuesday, alleging “unlawful interference in [WikiLeaks'] journalistic activities.” President Barack Obama is in Sweden this week on a state visit and had a press conference with his Swedish counterpart on Wednesday.

In a press release published on the WikiLeaks website on Monday, the organization wrote that it would be filing “four criminal complaints to be filed in different jurisdictions by WikiLeaks during the month of September.”

In a 186-page English-language affidavit (a more complete version with all of the appendices is available here), Assange claims that his “journalistic activities” were “monitored” by an American military intelligence officer while Assange was in Germany between December 26, 2009 and December 30, 2009. The silver-haired Australian also claims that there was a “likely unlawful seizure of property” in September 2010 consisting of “three encrypted laptops containing privileged journalistic and legal materials including evidence of a war crime.”

"I am informed by my legal advisors that this formal document may trigger an investigation and that independent judicial bodies may seek explanations of the responsible authorities as a result," he concludes. "I file this affidavit in the knowledge that there will likely be pressures for this matter not to be investigated but in the knowledge that the law requires an investigation. I request that Swedish judicial authorities act swiftly to question and arrest if necessary those who are likely to have information about or bear criminal responsibility for the actions taken against WikiLeaks and my person as detailed in this affidavit."

“Here Be Dragons”

Assange alleges that a bag that he checked on a commercial flight between Arlanda airport in Stockholm and Tegel airport in Berlin simply disappeared. WikiLeaks says it waited until the recent conclusion of the court martial of Pvt. Chelsea Manning (formerly known as Bradley Manning) to file the criminal complaints.

During Manning’s trial, there was testimony on June 11 from Matthew Hosburgh, a current reservist staff sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. Hosburgh had been stationed as a special intelligence system administrator at an American military base in Stuttgart in late 2009. He told the court that he attended a talk by Assange, where that year's annual Chaos Communication Congress during the last week of December 2009 in Berlin was dubbed “Here Be Dragons." A week later, Hosburgh wrote an “after action report” for his superiors concerning the nature of Assange’s talk.

“[Hosburgh’s] report was leaked to WikiLeaks and was being prepared for publication during September 2010,” Assange alleges. “The report was among the WikiLeaks materials that had been kept encrypted in the suitcase that was seized on September 27, 2010 when I was travelling from Stockholm to Berlin.”

Since WikiLeaks' founding in 2007, Assange knows that the very nature of the WikiLeaks organization puts himself at risk. As a result, he has taken certain precautions while previously on the move. After answering questions from Swedish authorities concerning alleged possible sex crimes, Assange left to attend “two long-standing appointments” in Berlin on September 27, 2010.

I implement counter-intelligence practices when I am aware that there is an active intelligence interest in my activities and movements. As I have explained above, I had learned through WikiLeaks' own sources and through media reports that there were heightened activities of this nature directed at me. As an investigative journalist who specializes in intelligence reporting, one of the methods I use to reduce the chance of post-flight surveillance of my work is to buy or exchange tickets immediately before a flight, often at the airport, so that intelligence services do not have sufficient time to observe, understand, alert, authorize, equip, and deploy. I followed my routine counter-intelligence practice in this instance as well. I arrived at the airport just after noon with the intention of purchasing a ticket shortly before the departure on the early afternoon flight. However, I was not able to gain a seat on my preferred flight and had to wait until a later flight, SAS SK2679 departing at 17.25. As a result, I was forced to wait at the airport for many hours longer than I would prefer, given my security concerns. I knew that Swedish intelligence services and possibly other countries' intelligence agencies were likely to monitor Arlanda airport and its ticketing system. I was concerned that my continued presence at Arlanda would be noticed and would permit those monitoring the airport to inform US authorities of my presence, take action themselves and/or alert German counterparts or services operating unlawfully in Germany of my pending arrival. . . . [Chaos Computer Club member and Assange colleague] Andy Müller-Maguhn (Appendix C) learned through his inquiries that the disappearance of my luggage on a flight with these characteristics was highly unusual: where luggage goes missing there is a 12-hour policy in place for the Star-Alliance partners. If inquiries are not dealt with within this time frame, the inquiry is prioritized. It seemed that this had not happened in my case. My suitcase had simply disappeared from the system. The lack of response or resolution on the part of the authorities and handling companies compounded these unusual characteristics.

“Action required Assange to be arrested under all circumstances”

The rest of the affidavit consists of a detailed timeline of Assange’s and WikiLeaks’ activities in recent years. Assange notes that since being holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, the Metropolitan Police has been spending over $16,000 per day waiting for him to leave. Presumably, if he did so, he would be immediately arrested and extradited to Sweden and/or the United States.

Assange writes:

On August 24, 2012 I gave a public speech from the Ecuadorian embassy. A high resolution camera operated by the British Press Association captured a police document (Appendix I). The document indicated that the Metropolitan Police's counter-terrorism protective security command (S020) and the unknown 'SS10' unit were involved in surveilling the embassy. In addition to the unexplained presence of the counter-terrorism unit and other police units deployed on this day, the document revealed that the police force was instructed to violate the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations in order to arrest me: “Action required Assange to be arrested under all circumstances” including if “He comes out with dip immune [diplomatic immunity] as dip bag in dip bag in dip vehicle.”

The FBI did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment concerning the likely ongoing investigation or pending charges against Assange.