Wikileaks Assange arrested

Police say WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been arrested on a Swedish warrant, the Washington Post reported.

Assange was arrested at 9:30 a.m. (0930 GMT) Tuesday and was due to appear at Westminster Magistrate's Court later in the day.

Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is expected to surrender to British police Tuesday as part of a Swedish sex-crimes investigation - one of a host of international legal, financial, and security challenges closing in on the secret-spilling website.

Lawyer Mark Stephens has said that Assange, who has been hiding out at an undisclosed location in Britain since WikiLeaks' began releasing hundreds of U.S. diplomatic cables to the Web last week, would soon meet with officers from London's Scotland Yard.

The police force said Tuesday it wouldn't comment until an arrest had been made.

The Internet-based organization's room for maneuver is narrowing by the day. It's been battered by web attacks, cut off by Internet service providers and been subjected to a barrage of muscular rhetoric out of the United States.

In the latest development, Swiss authorities closed Assange's bank account, depriving him of a key fundraising tool.

MasterCard has also pulled the plug on payments to the site, according to technology news website CNET. A European representative for the credit card company didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.