Assange: Pentagon behind rape charges
Assage says he was previously warned that the Pentagon "could use dirty tricks" to destroy Wikileaks.
Whistleblower website Wikileaks founder Julian Assange says there is a possibility that the Pentagon could be behind the rape accusations against him.
Assange, 39, was quoted by the Aftonbladet newspaper that he was previously warned that the Pentagon "could use dirty tricks" to destroy Wikileaks since it released secret documents of the Afghan war against Washington.
Less than a day after an arrest warrant was issued for Assange by Swedish prosecutors, they said that accusations against him were dropped and that Assange was now "not suspected of rape".
However, investigations into a separate molestation charge remain open, they added, according to AFP.
Wikileaks website, Assange and his staff maintain that he had fallen prey to a smear campaign designed to discredit him.
The accusations came at a time when Assange was preparing to release a fresh batch of 15,000 secret US documents covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010.
The first files in the whistle-blower website's "Afghan War Diary" disclosed classified military documents, an extraordinary compendium of over 91,000 reports.
MSD/AKM
