http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/assange-rape-accuser-cia-ties/

Revealed: Assange ‘rape’ accuser linked to notorious CIA operative

One of the women that is accusing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of sex crimes appears to have worked with a group that has connections to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

James D. Catlin, a lawyer who recently represented Assange, said the sex assault investigation into the WikiLeaks founder is based on claims he didn't use condoms during sex with two Swedish women.

Swedish prosecutors told AOL News last week that Assange was not wanted for rape as has been reported, but for something called "sex by surprise" or "unexpected sex."

One accuser, Anna Ardin, may have "ties to the US-financed anti-Castro and anti-communist groups," according to Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett, writing for CounterPunch.

While in Cuba, Ardin worked with the Las damas de blanco (the Ladies in White), a feminist anti-Castro group.

Professor Michael Seltzer pointed out that the group is led by Carlos Alberto Montaner who is reportedly connected to the CIA.

Shamir and Bennett also describe Ardin as a "leftist" who "published her anti-Castro diatribes (see here and here) in the Swedish-language publication Revista de Asignaturas Cubanas put out by Misceláneas de Cuba."

Shamir and Bennett noted that Las damas de blanco is partially funded by the US government and also counts Luis Posada Carriles as a supporter.

A declassified 1976 document (.pdf) revealed Posada to be a CIA agent. He has been convicted of terrorist attacks that killed hundreds of people.

Ardin is "a gender equity officer at Uppsula University – who chose to associate with a US funded group openly supported by a convicted terrorist and mass murderer," FireDogLake's Kirk James Murphy observed.

In August, Assange told Al-Jazeera that the accusations were "clearly a smear campaign."

"We have been warned that, for example, the Pentagon is planning on using dirty tricks to destroy our work," Assange told the Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbladet.

The WikiLeaks founder said he was told to be careful of "sex traps." Had Assange fallen for one of those traps? "Maybe. Maybe not," he said.

Catlin observed that both Ardin and Sofia Wilén, the second accuser, sent SMS messages and tweets boasting of their conquests following the alleged "rapes."

"In the case of Ardin it is clear that she has thrown a party in Assange's honour at her flat after the 'crime' and tweeted to her followers that she is with the 'the world’s coolest smartest people, it’s amazing!'" he wrote.

"The exact content of Wilén’s mobile phone texts is not yet known but their bragging and exculpatory character has been confirmed by Swedish prosecutors. Niether Wilén’s nor Ardin’s texts complain of rape," Catlin said.

Ardin has also published a seven step guide on how to get revenge on cheating boyfriends.

When the charges were first leveled in August, Gawker raised doubts that Ardin was working for the CIA.

"If anything, Ardin's outing tends to undercut Assange's conspiracy theory that one of his accusers is a major figure on Sweden's left fringe, freewheelingly indiscreet on her personal blog and, until her charges, an enthusiastic promoter of Assange's visit to the country," Gawker wrote.

After Interpol issued a digital "wanted" poster for Assange on Monday morning, an unnamed Scotland Yard source reportedly told Press Association it had been given the documents needed for the arrest. Police would not comment on the report publicly.

Several British news outlets speculated that Assange could be arrested as early as Tuesday.

On Monday evening, Mark Stephens, Assange's London lawyer, was negotiating with British authorities over an arrest warrant they'd received from their Swedish counterparts. Assange has vowed to fight extradition.


WikiLeaks Will Release "Poison Pill" of Secret Documents If They're Shut Down

http://www.alternet.org/world/149091/wikileaks_will_release_"poison_pill"_of_secret_documents_if_they%27re_shut_down

There is a new threat from the founder of the whistleblower website WikiLeaks.

Julian Assange will release a "poison pill" that contains a "deluge" of secret information if he is killed, arrested or his website is permanently shut down, Daily Mail reports.

"Due to recent attacks on our infrastructure, we've decided to make sure everyone can reach our content. As part of this process we're releasing archived copy of all files we ever released," WikiLeaks said in a message on its site.

WikiLeaks says it has another 250,000 cables it plans to gradually release over coming months -- if it can.

Anticipating the US attempts to block it though, WikiLeaks has taken the precaution of posting a big, 1.4-gigabyte file encrypted with a 256-digit key said to be unbreakable.

Titled "insurance.aes256", the file was big enough to contain all the US cables said to be in WikiLeaks's possession.

The encryption makes it unreadable until the key is supplied -- at which time all its contents would be available to those who downloaded it from torrent-feeding sites such as ThePirateBay.org.

"It's a ticking time bomb with a remote fuse," one expert told NBC News. "So this bomb can go off the second that they release the key and the key will spread around the internet in a matter of seconds."

Appearing on the BBC, Assange's lawyer defended the move. "They need to protect themselves," Mark Stephens said. This is what they believe to be a thermo-nuclear device effectively in the electronic age."

WikiLeaks has been under constant cyber attacks since it began releasing the secret US diplomatic cables.

WikiLeaks' DNS host, EveryDNS.com, killed the domain last week, according to an update posted to WikiLeaks' Twitter account.

The host cited "mass attacks," the whistleblower organization said.

It's not the first technical snag WikiLeaks has encountered in recent days. The site was down entirely most of last Wednesday after its host, Amazon.com, abandoned WikiLeaks as well, forcing them to move back to a mirror in Sweden. Service on the domain has been sporadic since then.

The site is now only accessible via an IP address: 213.251.145.96. Mirrors pointing to the address have popped up at WikiLeaks.de, WikiLeaks.fl, WikiLeaks.nl.

Even as WikiLeaks servers remain online, some organizations are blocking access to the site.

The White House told government agencies to take measures to prevent employees without proper authorization from accessing the secret cables.

It reminded them that "each federal employee and contractor is obligated to protect classified information" and said that a public release of classified documents did not mean they had been declassified.

"Unauthorized disclosures of classified documents (whether in print, on a blog or on websites) do not alter the documents' classified status or automatically result in declassification of the documents," the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said in a message to all federal agencies obtained by AFP.

The US Library of Congress was one institution that blocked staff and visitors from accessing WikiLeaks, citing 'potential malicious content'.

In a post on the Library of Congress blog, communications director Matt Raymond confirmed that access to Wikileaks was being blocked and rejected accusations of censorship.

"The Library decided to block Wikileaks because applicable law obligates federal agencies to protect classified information," Raymond said.

"In other words, the site is being blocked not out of censorship, but because providing the information that is there is illegal.

Assange has also been under threat of arrest by Swedish authorities for sex crimes.

A lawyer who recently represented Julian Assange said the sex assault investigation into the WikiLeaks founder is based on claims he didn't use condoms during sex with two Swedish women.

James D. Catlin, a lawyer in Melbourne, Australia, says in an article published Thursday that Sweden's justice system is destined to become "the laughingstock of the world" for investigating rape charges in two cases where women complained that Assange had had sex with them without using a condom.

Assange is thought to be hiding out in the UK but his lawyers said that Scotland Yard would not act on an arrest warrant because it was invalid.

Attorney Mark Stephens said that Scotland Yard has not moved to arrest Assange in the UK where he is thought to be hiding out because the original arrest warrant was invalid.

"There is no arrest warrant against him. There was an Interpol red notice, which is not a warrant, alerting authorities to monitor his movements," Stephens told Reuters.

"The arrest warrant was sent back by Scotland Yard because it did not comply with the law and was defective," he said.

Swedish police confirmed Friday that a new arrest warrant had been sent to the UK police. Several British news outlets speculated that Assange could be arrested as early as tomorrow.

A Swedish prosecutor handling allegations against the WikiLeaks founder dismissed suggestions from one of his lawyers Sunday that the case might be politically motivated.

"This investigation has proceeded perfectly normally without any political pressure of any kind," prosecutor Marianne Ny said.

"It is completely independent," she added.

Assange said in a online chat Friday that he, his lawyers and his family have "had hundreds of specific death threats from US military militants".

"Some right-wing sites also called for attacking me via my children," he noted.

"I predicted this might happen since April, so since that time I have had to stay away from my family," Assange added.