By Adam Taylor
Business Insider
WikiLeaks is said to be preparing a release that will allege Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt has been a US informant since the 1970s.
The news was broken by Swedish newspaper Expressen, who have access to an internal Wikileaks memo. The memo says that the allegations are supposedly based on a US diplomat’s report, and will be politically explosive. “He will be forced to resign”, one source told the paper.
Bildt is alleged to have reported to Karl Rove, the former advisor to George W. Bush, in the document — Bildt has publicly admitted he meets with Rove but in an informal manner. However, the document reportedly reveals he has acted as an “informer” to the US government since 1973.
“There are secret documents that reveal that Bildt cooperated with the U.S. administration in a manner contrary to Swedish law”, one source told Expressen.
Given that Wikileaks head Julian Assange is currently wanted for “sex crimes” in Sweden and is facing extradition to the country from the UK, the documents intentions are somewhat suspect. An informant told Expressen that Assange fears that he could be forced to testify in the trial against Bradley Manning, the alleged leak in the US army now being held, if he is put on trial in Sweden.
Expressen is billing the attack as a “smear campaign”, while Bildt himself tweeted this morning:
Interestingly, Expressen was also the paper to break the story of the “sex crimes” allegations against Assange, as well as later revealing doubts about the police’s handling of the case.