Assange Arrest About Rape, Not Leaks

There’s an unnerving conspiracy theory doing the rounds online today, which goes something like this: Swedish prosecutors issued an international arrest warrant for the WikiLeaks chief, Julian Assange, because they were quietly ordered to by the CIA/US Government for political reasons. In milder terms, this idea was first proposed by his lawyer, Mark Stephens – who hasn’t yet contradicted his client’s claims of an international “smear campaign”. It has also been reported prominently by the BBC. Today Assange’s admirers have already started a kind of vigil on Twitter, saying things like: “Only a matter of time before they fabricate ‘evidence’ against Assange & lock him up.”