text: At the centre of a tightening web of death threats, sex-crime accusations and high-level demands for a treason trial, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange threatened to unleash a “thermonuclear device” of completely unexpurgated government files if he is forced to appear before authorities. 
   
   Mr. Assange, the 39-year-old Australian Internet activist whose online document-leaking service has embarrassed the United States and other countries by publishing hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic and military documents, has referred to the huge, unfiltered document as his “insurance policy.” 
   
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   The 1.3-gigabyte file, distributed through file-sharing services this summer and protected with an unbreakable 256-bit encryption key, contains full versions of all the U.S. documents received by WikiLeaks to date – including those that have been withheld from publication or have had names and details removed in order to protect the lives of spies, sources and soldiers. 
   
   Silent for the better part of a week as WikiLeaks made daily headlines around the globe, Mr. Assange has been increasingly vocal in recent days, defending his actions, decrying his critics and defying world leaders. 
   
   Mr. Assange’s lawyer Mark Stephens warned that if Mr. Assange were to be brought to trial on rape accusations he faces in Sweden, or for treason charges that have been suggested by U.S. politicians, he would release the encryption key. The tens of thousands of people who have downloaded the file would instantly have access to the names, addresses and details contained in the file. 
   
   WikiLeaks, Mr. Stephens said, has “been subject to cyberattacks and censorship around the world and they need to protect themselves ... This is what they believe to be a thermonuclear device in the information age.” 
   
   He uttered that threat as his client was believed to be in hiding in Britain, with prominent U.S. and Saudi officials calling for Mr. Assange’s arrest or death, justice officials attempting to shut down his websites in many countries, and the Swedish justice system seeking him for questioning on the sexual-crime allegations. 
   
   Mr. Assange has denied the accusation, made by two women who hosted a party for him in Stockholm in August. He has acknowledged having had consensual sex with the complainants. Reports say the sex became non-consensual over disagreements about condom use. 
   
   This weekend he refused to respond to a European arrest warrant issued by Sweden, and an Interpol alert related to the accusation. His lawyers argued that the accusations amount to a smear campaign and suggested that U.S. officials might be behind them. 
   
   The Swedish prosecutor took the unusual step of going before the news media to say she has received no pressure or communication of any sort from international or political authorities and that the charges are unrelated to the leaks scandal. 
   
   “This investigation has proceeded perfectly normally without any political pressure of any kind,” prosecutor Marianne Ny told the Agence France-Presse wire service. “It is completely independent.” 
   
   A number of high-profile U.S. figures, including Republicans Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, have called for the prosecution of Mr. Assange. 
   
   “Julian Assange is engaged in warfare,” Mr. Gingrich said, echoing similar words spoken by Ms. Palin and others last week. “Information terrorism, which leads to people getting killed, is terrorism. And Julian Assange is engaged in terrorism. He should be treated as an enemy combatant and WikiLeaks should be closed down permanently and decisively.” 
   
   However, U.S. charges against Mr. Assange are unlikely: He is not a U.S. citizen and, because he did not steal the documents himself, but only participated in their publication, he would likely be protected under the U.S. Constitution’s free-speech provisions. 
   
   The documents were reportedly stolen from a U.S. military installation by Bradley Manning, a former private in the U.S. Army who copied years of secret Pentagon and State Department communiqués and passed them to Mr. Assange, who in turn brokered deals with worldwide media outlets to publish details from them. Those details, despite some censorship by Mr. Assange and the publishers, have shaken relations between the United States and Gulf countries, Russia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. 
   
   Mr. Manning is already being held in solitary confinement, and will likely face treason and espionage charges. This has not stopped a growing chorus of U.S. and foreign figures from pushing for punishment for Mr. Assange. 
   
   U.S. newspapers reported that a team of Justice Department and Pentagon investigators is looking into the possibility of charges against Mr. Assange under the Espionage Act. Attorney-General Eric Holder said “this is not sabre-rattling” when asked by reporters about the possibility of charges. Justice officials in Australia, where Mr. Assange was born, are reportedly also looking into a prosecution. 
   
   That did not stop more figures from suggesting that Mr. Assange should be harmed or killed – a circle that includes Canadian Tom Flanagan, a former campaign manager to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who told a TV interviewer last week that Mr. Assange should be assassinated (he later apologized for the remark). 
   
   In an online interview with the Guardian newspaper, Mr. Assange said Mr. Flanagan “should be charged with incitement to commit murder.” 
   
   He also told reporters Barack Obama and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, should resign if they are shown to have authorized an operation to spy on United Nations top officials – one of the many secrets revealed in the leaked State Department cables. 
   
   “Obama must answer what he knew about this illegal order and when. If he refuses to answer or there is evidence he approved of these actions, he must resign,” the WikiLeaks founder told the Spanish newspaper El Pais. 
   
   He suggested, not for the first time, that he believes his document service has had a profound effect on world history: “I believe geopolitics will be separated into pre- and post-Cablegate phases.” ||||| WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange 'will release poison pill of damaging secrets if killed or arrested' 
   
   
   
   Threat: WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, has warned that if he he is arrested or killed his followers will release more damaging information 
   
   The founder of WikiLeaks has warned that his supporters are primed to publish a 'deluge' of leaked government documents should his activities be curtailed by any country. 
   
   Julian Assange has distributed to fellow hackers an encrypted 'poison pill' of damaging secrets, thought to include details on BP and Guantanamo Bay. 
   
   He believes the file is his 'insurance' in case he is killed, arrested or the whistleblowing website is removed permanently from the internet. 
   
   Mr Assange - understood to be lying low in Britain - could be arrested by Scotland Yard officers as early as tomorrow. 
   
   A warrant for his arrest was issued last Thursday by Swedish prosecutors who want to quiz him over rape allegations. 
   
   The developments came as fresh revelations were published on the WikiLeaks website. They include: 
   
   A leading Chinese politician coordinated the hacking of Google - which forced it to quit the Communist country - after finding unflattering articles about him on the website. 
   
   UK firm Rolls-Royce lost out on a £200million contract to supply helicopter engines to Spain after the U.S. lobbied Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero in Madrid. The deal was eventually signed by American company GE. 
   
   
   
   And European Union President Herman Van Rompuy told a U.S. ambassador that European troops were still in Afghanistan only 'out of deference' to America. 
   
   Mr Assange, a reclusive Australian, has infuriated and embarrassed the U.S. in recent months by releasing hundreds of thousands of classified documents. 
   
   First, he published Army logs from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that suggested soldiers were complicit in murder and torture. 
   
   And last week he published the first of around 250,000 diplomatic cables from U.S. embassies, many containing sensitive information and embarrassing verdicts on leaders including David Cameron. 
   
   High-profile politicians in the U.S. including Sarah Palin, a narrow loser in the race to become the Republican presidential candidate in 2008, have suggested the computer programmer should be 'executed' for publishing leaked U.S. state secrets. 
   
   Mr Assange's British lawyer, Mark Stephens, warned today that WikiLeaks was holding further secret material which he dubbed a 'thermo-nuclear device' to be released if the organisation needed to protect itself. 
   
   He said many of the papers being retained contained 'material of equal importance to news-gathering' as those already published. 
   
   He said: 'They [WikiLeaks] have been subject to cyber-attacks and censorship around the world and they need to protect themselves. 
   
   Mr Assange's lawyer has warned WikiLeaks was holding a 'thermo-nuclear device' of further secret information 
   
   
   
   'This is what they believe to be a thermo-nuclear device in the information age. 
   
   'It's interesting to note people as high up the American tree as Sarah Palin have called for him to be hunted down by American special forces and assassinated. 
   
   'We've seen a number of suggestions that he should be assassinated, again from credible sources around the world. 
   
   'This is all about a man who is a journalist. He received, unbidden, an electronic brown envelope that journalists receive. 
   
   'This particular journalist has put it out. What they are doing is criminalising him, criminalising journalistic activity.' 
   
   Sarah Palin has called for Mr Assange to be hunted down by American special forces 
   
   
   
   The prime suspect in the hunt for the person who stole the files is Bradley Manning, a 23-year-old U.S. Army intelligence analyst who is now in military custody. 
   
   The 'doomsday files' which have been downloaded from the WikiLeaks website by tens of thousands of supporters are understood to include information on Guantanamo Bay, and aerial video of a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan that killed civilians, BP reports and Bank of America documents. 
   
   The files are encoded with a 256-digit key. Experts have said it is virtually unbreakable. 
   
   Mr Stephens told the BBC that legal moves to arrest Mr Assange, who is wanted for questioning over the rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion of two women during a visit to Sweden in August, appeared to be a 'political stunt'. 
   
   Originally the entire case was dropped by Sweden's chief prosecutor. 
   
   
   
   Mr Stephens said that only 'after the intervention of a Swedish politician' that a new prosecutor in Gothenburg - not Stockholm, where his client and two women had been - began a new case. 
   
   He denies the allegations vehemently and has described them as a 'smear'. 
   
   Mr Stephens said that Sweden had allowed U.S. planes carrying terror suspects - the illegal practice of extraordinary rendition - to use its airfields. 
   
   He said: 'It doesn't escape me that Sweden was one of those lick-spittle states which used its resources and facilities for rendition flights.' 
   
   He also confirmed that the WikiLeaks site had come under siege from 'a huge number of cyber-attacks'. 
   
   We're being watched, say Assange's lawyers 
   
   Lawyers representing Mr Assange claim they have become surveillance targets and have accused the US state department of 'inappropriate' behaviour for failing to respect UN rules on attorney-client protocol. 
   
   
   
   Mark Stephens and Jennifer Robinson told the Guardian they had been watched by people parked outside their houses for the past seven days. 
   
   Ms Robinson said: 'I've noticed people consistently sitting outside my house in the same cars with newspapers.' 
   
   
   
   The lawyers, from firm Finers Stephens Innocent, also claimed to be experiencing 'other forms of pressure' from Washington. 
   
   Ms Robinson references a letter from a state department legal adviser addressed to both herself and Mr Assange - appearing to suggest that Wikileaks and its lawyers were one and the same. 
   
   
   
   She said: 'By eliding client and lawyer, that was a very inappropriate attempt to implicate me. That is really inappropriate to come from the state department of all places; they understand very well the rules on attorney-client protocol.'
target: – WikiLeaks' founder has a "thermonuclear device" of unreleased files that he says he'll detonate if he's killed or brought to trial. Julian Assange has widely distributed an encrypted 1.3-gigabyte file containing the full versions of all the US documents the site has received, and his lawyer says the encryption key will be released if Assange is forced to appear before Swedish authorities on sexual assault charges or American authorities on treason charges, the Globe and Mail reports. Assange has referred to the file as his insurance policy, claiming it contains names, addresses, and other details that were removed to protect spies, soldiers, and other sources. WikiLeaks "has been subject to cyber attacks and censorship around the world and they need to protect themselves. This is what they believe to be a thermonuclear device in the information age," said Assange's lawyer.