Details of Sex Crime Allegations Against WikiLeaks' Assange Surface

Leaked police reports from Sweden are providing the most detailed account to date of the rape and molestation allegations circling WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Assange was freed from a London jail on $300,000 bail on Thursday, after being held for nine days on an arrest warrant issued from Sweden, where prosecutors are investigation allegations made by two women there. Despite widely-circulated claims that Assange is accused of violating a (nonexistent) Swedish law forbidding "sex by surprise," or another (nonexistant) Swedish law making it illegal to have consensual sex without a condom, it's already surfaced in court that Assange is suspected of unlawful coercion, two instances of sexual molestation, and one of rape.

But the details have been fairly opaque until now. The UK Guardian -- one of WikiLeaks' media partners in its U.S. government releases -- now reports it has seen the police documents memorializing the claims made by the two alleged victims in Sweden, identified as Miss A and Miss W. Both women described having sexual encounters with Assange during his visit there last August.

From the Guardian:

[Miss A's] account to police, which Assange disputes, stated that he began stroking her leg as they drank tea, before he pulled off her clothes and snapped a necklace that she was wearing. According to her statement she "tried to put on some articles of clothing as it was going too quickly and uncomfortably but Assange ripped them off again". Miss A told police that she didn't want to go any further "but that it was too late to stop Assange as she had gone along with it so far", and so she allowed him to undress her.

According to the statement, Miss A then realised he was trying to have unprotected sex with her. She told police that she had tried a number of times to reach for a condom but Assange had stopped her by holding her arms and pinning her legs. The statement records Miss A describing how Assange then released her arms and agreed to use a condom, but she told the police that at some stage Assange had "done something" with the condom that resulted in it becoming ripped, and ejaculated without withdrawing.

The second woman, Miss W, also described a dispute with Assange over condom use.

The following day, Miss W phoned Assange and arranged to meet him late in the evening, according to her statement. The pair went back to her flat in Enkoping, near Stockholm. Miss W told police that though they started to have sex, Assange had not wanted to wear a condom, and she had moved away because she had not wanted unprotected sex. Assange had then lost interest, she said, and fallen asleep. However, during the night, they had both woken up and had sex at least once when "he agreed unwillingly to use a condom".

Early the next morning, Miss W told police, she had gone to buy breakfast before getting back into bed and falling asleep beside Assange. She had awoken to find him having sex with her, she said, but when she asked whether he was wearing a condom he said no. "According to her statement, she said: 'You better not have HIV' and he answered: 'Of course not,' " but "she couldn't be bothered to tell him one more time because she had been going on about the condom all night. She had never had unprotected sex before."

The Guardian has full details of the allegations, which include other claims of bad behavior and harassment.

Assange has denied any wrongdoing, and suggested that the case is part of a "smear campaign" and a "set-up" -- prompting supporters to publicly investigate the two women.

A mix of confusion and misinformation over the Swedish investigation has also generated heat online. This week, MSNBC Countdown host Keith Olbermann fled Twitter as a backlash erupted over a segment featuring filmmaker Michael Moore, who'd posted a portion of Assange's bail. Moore used Olbermann's show to accuse the two Swedish women of being part of a plot against WikiLeaks, and argued that, in any event, the accusations were no big deal.

"This whole thing stinks to the high heavens, I gotta tell ya" said Moore. "I've seen this enough times where governments and corporations go after individuals ... with this kind of lie and smear ... And the charges: his condom broke during consensual sex. That is not a crime in Britain ... This is all a bunch of hooey as far as I'm concerned."