WikiLeaks chief faces new arrest warrant

Sweden said today it would issue a fresh arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as new revelations from his website's expose of US diplomatic cables saw Russia branded a "mafia state".

While the elusive whistleblower laid low, his British lawyer insisted police knew his whereabouts and it emerged that an initial warrant was defective.

The United States meanwhile named an anti-terrorism expert to lead a review of security in the wake of the leaks which have angered its friends and foes.

After the Supreme Court in Stockholm refused to hear an appeal by Assange against the initial warrant over allegations of rape and molestation, Swedish police said they would issue a new one as a result of a procedural error.

"We have to refresh the warrant. It's a procedural fault, we agree. The prosecutor Marianne Ny has to write a new one," Tommy Kangasvieri of the Swedish National Criminal Police told AFP.

"The procedure demands that the maximum penalty for all crimes Assange is suspected for is written" in the warrant, he explained. "We described it only for the rape."

While Assange has not been seen in public since WikiLeaks began leaking around 250,000 cables on Sunday, his London-based lawyer Mark Stephens denied he was on the run.

"Scotland Yard know where he is, the security services from a number of countries know where is," Stephens told AFP.

"The (British) police are being slightly foxy in their answers, but they know exactly how to get in touch with him, as do the Swedish prosecutors."

Britain's Times newspaper said that Assange was at a location in southeast England although there was no confirmation from Stephens.

After former US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin said the WikiLeaks team should be treated like a terrorist organisation, a spokesman for the website said Assange feared for his life.

"When you have people calling, for example, for his assassination, it is best to keep a low profile," Kristinn Hrafnsson said in London, after right-wing US websites and pundits called for him to be assassinated.

Assange's mother also expressed fear for her son's safety.

"I'm concerned it's gotten too big and the forces that he's challenging are too big," Christine Assange told the Courier Mail, her local newspaper in Queensland, Australia.

Assange's Stockholm-based lawyer Bjoern Hurtig told AFP today he would fight his client's extradition to Sweden in the event of his arrest.