Australia ‘may ask Sweden to prosecute Assange’

The Australian government has warned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that it may demand that Sweden prosecute him, should the latest release of top-secret military files on his whistleblowing website pose a risk to serving forces.

Australia's Attorney-General Robert McClelland told Assange that he should not release any information about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that could endanger those on the front line.

"Anything that puts those people who are serving their country and protecting our security at risk is entirely reprehensible, whether it's done for notoriety, whether it's done for commercial interests," McClelland said.

He added: "If these acts amount to an offence, the people involved will most certainly be prosecuted."

Assange is an Australian citizen but runs his controversial website WikiLeaks from Sweden. In July the site published a staggering 90,000 Afghan war documents and plans to release another 'information dump' containing 15,000 further reports shortly.

Earlier this month WikiLeaks announced that it was working with unnamed media organisations to publish a "massive cache" of classified US military field reports on the conflict in Iraq.

Assange is due to make his first public appearance since he came under suspicion of rape and molestation in two separate cases in Sweden in August.

He will take part in a panel discussion at London's City University tonight. The event, entitled 'Too much information? Security and censorship in the age of Wikileaks' will be chaired by Jonathan Dimbleby. ·