Epress.am News from Armenia
The WikiLeaks website has been shut down worldwide, as British media reports Scotland Yard could arrest the site’s founder Julian Assange as early as tomorrow, reports ABC News.
WikiLeaks says servers in the United States have killed the site’s domain name following “mass attacks”.
The domain hosting withdrawal means the website is down worldwide. Earlier this week Amazon booted WikiLeaks from its servers.
Assange’s website this week released more than 250,000 secret US diplomatic cables, which has left governments around the world scrambling to deal with the fallout.
Prosecutors in Sweden want to question Assange over alleged sex crimes involving two women during a visit to Stockholm in August.
Assange, who was born in Australia, has not been charged and he denies the allegations.
He reportedly avoided arrest this week because Swedish authorities had filled out an Interpol red notice incorrectly.
Britain’s Independent newspaper reports that police know Assange’s whereabouts in England and are expected to arrest him in the coming days.
Assange’s Stockholm-based lawyer Bjoern Hurtig says he will fight his client’s extradition to Sweden in the event of his arrest.
“Together with my British colleague Mark Stephens and international experts, we will fight the extradition warrants,” he said.
A WikiLeaks spokesman says Assange has to remain out of the public eye because he is facing assassination threats following the whistleblowing website’s publication of the secret cables.
Several US senators have also called for him to be charged with espionage.
Senator Dianne Feinstein says the leak is a serious breach of national security and action must be taken.
“We have reviewed the espionage statutes and we believe it qualifies,” she said.
“That this, allowed to be carried out, incapacitates this nation to carry out business.”