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"Nestled in Monday's WikiLeaks cache of 5 million emails from security company Stratfor was a nugget of particular importance to the secret-sharing organization: An email that suggests the U.S. government has unreleased criminal charges against founder Julian Assange.\n\"Not for Pub \u2014 We have a sealed indictment on Assange. Pls protect,\" reads the email sent from Stratfor's vice president of intelligence via his BlackBerry device.\nThat email, sent in January of last year, was among the first parts of WikiLeaks' most recent info dump to be published by international newspapers. Those papers \u2014 the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald \u2014 were unable to confirm the existence of an American indictment of Assange. \nIf the email is indeed accurate, it means the U.S. has privately charged Assange with some crime.\nMillions of emails were taken from Stratfor by Anonymous and then handed to WikiLeaks. Stratfor issued a release calling the incident a \"theft\" and is declining comment or questioning on the matter.\n\nSEE ALSO: WikiLeaks Partners With Anonymous, Releases Security Firm\u2019s Emails\nIn November 2010, WikiLeaks published more than 250,000 secret U.S. diplomatic cables. Soon afterward, U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst serving in Iraq, was arrested on suspicion of handing those cables over to Assange's organization. Manning was recently arraigned and is now awaiting the beginning of a military court martial against him. \nA secret grand jury that has been meeting since December of 2010 to determine whether to press charges against Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. One writer at Forbes speculated that if an indictment against Assange does indeed exist, it may remain sealed until a possible plea deal with Manning reveals more about Assange. \nAssange is currently under house arrest outside London while he appeals extradition to Sweden to answer charges of sexual misconduct and rape. If Assange is indeed charged by the U.S., it will add another layer to his fight to remain in Britain. \nDo you think Julian Assange is a criminal or a hero? What do you think about WikiLeaks? Sound off in the comments below.\nImages courtesy of Flickr, acidpolly"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/02/28/julian-assange/>