Hackers on cyber attack in sympathy with WikiLeaks

Cyber attacks apparently organized by Internet activists sympathetic to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange shut down the website of credit card company Mastercard and two Swedish sites on Wednesday.

"WE ARE GLAD TO TELL YOU THAT http://www.mastercard.com/ is DOWN AND IT'S CONFIRMED!," said an entry on the Twitter feed of a group calling itself AnonOps.

The move was in apparent retaliation for the company's blocking of donations to the WikiLeaks website.

Assange has angered the United States with releases of thousands of secret diplomatic cables. He is in British custody after Sweden asked him to be detained over allegations of sexual crimes were made against him by two women there.

Mastercard said in a statement it was "experiencing heavy traffic on its external corporate website - MasterCard.com - but this remains accessible...There is no impact whatsoever on MasterCard or Maestro cardholders' ability to use their cards for secure transactions."

The AnonOps group says it fights against censorship and "copywrong."

Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at security software maker F-Secure, said the typical attack was by bombarding a website with so many demands that it crashed.

The same Twitter feed said in an entry made about 17 hours ago that the Swedish prosecution authority website, was also a target.

The prosecution authority, whose arrest order led a British court on Tuesday to remand Assange in custody, said it had made a complaint to the police after an "overload attack".

"Of course, it's easy to think it has a connection with WikiLeaks but we can't confirm that," prosecution authority web editor Fredrik Berg told Reuters Television.

The prosecution authority website was down for most of Tuesday evening and some of Wednesday morning.

The other Swedish website targeted was that of the legal firm of the lawyer for the two women who made the complaint against Assange, which was also inaccessible.

"Well I don't know if there is a connection between our website being hacked and WikiLeaks but I suppose so," Claes Borgstrom, the lawyer for the two women, told reporters.

Well I don't know if there is a connection between our website being hacked and WikiLeaks but I suppose so

Claes Borgstrom

Claims nothing to do with WikiLeaks

Earlier on Wednesday Borgstrom said the claims against Assange have nothing to do with his WikiLeaks website and he should say so.

"There is absolutely no link between what those two women have been through and WikiLeaks, the CIA, or the American administration," Claes Borgstroem said.

The case "has nothing to do with WikiLeaks. I would like Julian Assange to come forward and say that himself," Borgstroem told reporters in Stockholm.

"It would be a way of getting rid of all these rumors."

Borgstroem criticized the 39-year-old Australian for "not only hinting, but saying that this case is a conspiracy."

"He knows this had nothing to do with WikiLeaks," the lawyer stressed.

Assange, whose website is currently publishing thousands of confidential US diplomatic cables, was denied bail and remanded in custody in Britain Tuesday following his arrest under a warrant issued by Swedish authorities.

The British court, which denied him bail, heard Assange is accused of unlawfully coercing and sexually molesting a woman on August 14, and deliberately molesting her on August 18.

A fourth allegation claims Assange had sex with a second woman on August 17 while she was asleep at her Stockholm home, and without using a condom.

Assange denies the allegations, which his London-based lawyer Mark Stephens told journalists Tuesday were "politically motivated."

The Australian former hacker has also said the claims were part of a "smear campaign" to discredit his website.

Borgstroem said the elusive Australian's arrest was "a positive development" for his clients.

"They are a little relieved that he is under arrest in England, but at the same time it's a very frustrating situation, they have to wait much longer," he said.

There is absolutely no link between what those two women have been through and WikiLeaks, the CIA, or the American administration

Borgstroem

Top Human Rights lawyer

High-profile human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson will Assange in his fight against extradition from Britain to Sweden, Robertson's office said.

Robertson, a barrister who has dual British and Australian nationality, has appeared in some of the highest-profile freedom of speech trials in British history.

He was also among the defence team in the trial for the IRA bombing of the Brighton hotel which targeted then prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the mid-1980s.

"I do believe he is representing him," a member of staff at Robertson's Doughty Street Chambers in London told AFP.

According to his personal website, Robertson is a member of the United Nations Justice Council, having served as the first President of the Special Court in Sierra Leone.

A Nobel Prize?

Meanwhile a Kremlin source was quoted as saying that Assange should be helped and could even be put forward for a Nobel prize,

"Social and non-governmental organizations need to think how to help him," a source in the Kremlin administration was quoted as telling Russian news agencies.

"Perhaps he can be put forward as a laureate for the Nobel Prize," added the source, who was not named, in apparent reference to the annual peace award.

The remarks may have been made with a degree of irony and Russia has so far played down the release of the U.S. diplomatic cables and predicted they will have no major effect in its relations with the United States.

However no further quotes or explanation from the source, who was quoted by all of Russia's main news agencies in a simultaneous dispatch, were forthcoming.

Perhaps he can be put forward as a laureate for the Nobel Prize

Kremlin source