Prosecutors defend about-face on arrest

August 23, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

STOCKHOLM

Swedish prosecutors defended their handling of a rape allegation against the founder of WikiLeaks, saying Sunday that they had made no mistakes in issuing an arrest warrant and withdrawing it less than a day later.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said the short-lived warrant had damaged his group nonetheless.

The Swedish Prosecution Authority said an “on-call” prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for Assange late Friday only to see it revoked the next day by a higher-ranked prosecutor, who found no grounds to suspect him of rape.

“The prosecutor who took over the case yesterday had more information, and that is why she made a different assessment than the on-call prosecutor,” said Karin Rosander, a spokeswoman for the authority.

She declined to specify what the new material was, but said there was “absolutely nothing” that suggested errors had been made by either prosecutor.

Assange was in Sweden last week seeking legal protection for the webiste, which angered the Obama administration by publishing thousands of leaked documents about U.S. military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan.