Sweden's chief prosecutor asks for court order to detain Julian Assange on suspicion of rape, sexual assault and coercion

This article is more than 9 years old

This article is more than 9 years old

Sweden's chief prosecutor today asked for a court order to detain the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, for questioning in a rape case.

The move could mean that prosecutors were preparing an international arrest warrant for the Australian, whose whereabouts were not immediately clear.

"I request the court detain Assange in his absence on suspicion of rape, sexual assault and coercion," the director of public prosecution, Marianne Ny, said in a statement.

She said the request, which will be considered by a judge later today, was made because investigators had not been able to bring Assange in for questioning. He was accused of raping a woman in Stockholm in August, a charge that was later dropped, and sexually assaulting another woman in the town of Enk.

Assange, whose website was behind the biggest leak of US military documents in history, has repeatedly denied the allegations.

Ny's statement said: "The reason for my request is that we need to interrogate him. So far, we have not been able to meet with him to accomplish the interrogation."

Assange's lawyers said he had offered to meet Swedish investigators either at the Swedish embassy in London or at a police station in the UK.

A warrant for his arrest was first issued in August, but it was dropped within 24 hours when prosecutors said the accusations against him lacked substance. After prosecutors reopened the case Assange was questioned by Swedish police at the end of August, for about an hour according to his lawyer.

Investigators have released few details about the allegations against Assange, though a police report showed that both women had met him in connection with a seminar he gave in Stockholm on 14 August. The report shows the women filed their complaints together six days later.

At the time Assange issued a statement on Twitter saying: "The charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing". His supporters claim he is the victim of a smear campaign.

WikiLeaks has angered the Pentagon by releasing thousands of classified US war reports from Afghanistan and Iraq. Assange travelled to Sweden in August to seek international legal protection for his website under Swedish law after WikiLeaks published 90,000 leaked documents about US military activities in Afghanistan from 2004-2010.

He was given permission to leave Sweden, his lawyers said.