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Wikileaks: Julian Assange arrest warrant arrives in UK

07 December 2010 00:45 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Britain has received a European arrest warrant from Sweden for the Wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange, APA reports quoting BBC.
The warrant is being processed by the Serious Organised Crime Agency and will be sent to the Metropolitan Police as he is thought to be in the London area.
Mr Assange is wanted in Sweden to face sex allegations which he denies.
It comes as Downing Street issued strong criticism of Wikileaks for publishing secret diplomatic cables identifying important facilities.
The list includes sites and factories in Britain which the US says are vital to its security.
Security officials say the sites could now become terrorist targets and Foreign Secretary William Hague says the release of the information could have put lives at risk.
The list includes pipelines, communication and transport hubs.
Several UK sites are listed, from Cornwall to Scotland, including key satellite communications sites and the places where trans-Atlantic cables make landfall.
Security review
A number of BAE Systems plants involved in joint weapons programmes with the Americans are listed, along with a marine engineering firm in Edinburgh which is said to be "critical" for nuclear-powered submarines.
Meanwhile the Home Secretary, Theresa May, says all government departments have been told to carry out a security review following the publication of the secret US diplomatic cables on the Wikileaks website.
She told MPs that the prime minister’s security adviser, Sir Peter Ricketts, had written "to all departments to ask them to look again at their information security and to provide him with an assurance about the level of that information security".
The Swiss post office bank, PostFinance, has also frozen Mr Assange’s bank accounts.