State’s Secrets
Articles in this series examine American diplomatic relations as a window on relations with the rest of the world in an age of war and terrorism.
Documents: Selected Dispatches
The Lede
Updates on the reaction to the leak of diplomatic cables.
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In a statement issued from its headquarters in the French city of Lyon, the international police agency said that it had issued the call on Nov. 20, two days after Swedish prosecutors won court approval for a warrant that Interpol could circulate, and that it had only now received ’s authorization to make its action public.
The whereabouts of Mr. Assange, 39, are unknown, but the sequence suggested that if he wanted to flee Britain, his last known location, without being arrested, he might have had to do so within 48 hours of the Swedish court ruling.
The development came as several newspapers, including The New York Times, published confidential documents from a mass of some 250,000 diplomatic cables from the State Department in Washington including communications concerning American policy in Iran, Pakistan, Korea and many other places.
In its statement, Interpol said that its 188 member countries had “been advised to ensure that their border control agencies are made aware of Assange’s Red Notice status, which is a request for any country to identify or locate an individual with a view toward their provisional arrest and extradition.”
The Swedish prosecutor’s office said almost two weeks ago that a court in Stockholm had approved its request for the arrest of Mr. Assange to face questioning on charges that he has strongly denied and that WikiLeaks has dismissed as “dirty tricks” meant to punish him for his organization’ work.
Two weeks ago, Marianne Ny, director of the Stockholm prosecutor’s office, said in a statement that she had moved to have Mr. Assange extradited to Sweden on suspicion of “rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion.”
The accusations were first made against Mr. Assange after he traveled to Sweden in mid-August and had brief relationships with two Swedish women that he has described as consensual. Attempts to reach Ms. Ny on Wednesday to clarify what action was being taken to secure Mr. Assange’s arrest and return to Sweden were unsuccessful.
According to accounts his accusers gave to the police and friends, they both had consensual sexual encounters with Mr. Assange that became nonconsensual. One woman said that Mr. Assange ignored her appeals to stop after a condom broke. The other woman said that she and Mr. Assange had begun a sexual encounter using a condom, but that Mr. Assange did not comply with her appeals to stop when it was no longer in use. Mr. Assange has questioned the veracity of those accounts.
Lawyers acting for Mr. Assange appealed against the arrest warrant at Sweden’s highest court on Tuesday, The Associated Press said in a report that also quoted President of Ecuador as dismissing an offer of residence in his country made to Mr. Assange by a lower official.
A spokesman for Scotland Yard said the force had received “no intelligence” that Mr. Assange was in London, and said that British police, following what he described as normal practice in the case of Interpol Red Notices, were not involved in an active effort to arrest him.
Though officers are not dedicated to finding Mr. Assange, who is Australian, the spokesman said “if that intelligence comes in, or we have reason to believe that a person who has a red notice out on them is in a certain location, we will find them and extradite them as per the international rules.”
Unconfirmed reports on Wednesday, attributed to WikiLeaks associates, said Mr. Assange was staying out of sight somewhere outside London. The cellphones of two close associates of Mr. Assange seemed to be switched off with recorded messages saying their owners were outside Britain.
A Web report by the British Guardian newspaper, which has developed close ties with Mr. Assange in the months that the Guardian, The Times and other publications have been preparing stories based on the WikiLeaks documents, said on Tuesday that Mr. Assange was “in a secret location somewhere outside London with fellow hackers and WikiLeaks enthusiasts.”
An American journalist based in New York said that he had had contact with aides to Mr. Assange in recent days over a possible interview, and had been told to prepare for a meeting with him in Britain sometime in January.
