US prosecutors obtain sealed indictment against Assange

Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, has been charged under seal in the US, prosecutors have accidentally revealed. A report in The Daily Telegraph notes that American prosecutors obtained a sealed indictment against Assange, whose website published thousands of classified US Government documents, a US federal court document showed last week. The document, which prosecutors say was filed by mistake, asks a judge to seal documents in a criminal case unrelated to Assange, and carries markings indicating it was originally filed in the US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, in August. A source familiar with the matter reportedly told Reuters the document was initially sealed but unsealed this week for reasons that are unclear. On Twitter, Wikileaks said it was an ‘apparent cut-and-paste error’. It is unclear what charges Assange faces. But Joshua Stueve, a spokesperson for the prosecutors' office which filed the document that was unsealed, said: ‘The court filing was made in error. That was not the intended name for this filing.’ Prosecutors sought to keep the charges confidential until after Assange's arrest, the document shows, saying the move was essential to ensure he did not evade or avoid arrest and extradition in the case.