Yesterday, the US Department of Justice tightened its accusations against the founder of the WikiLeaks site, Julian Assange, by presenting new evidence that he had recruited pirates and conspired in the attacks on computers.
This evidence supports 18 criminal charges Assange faces in the United States, the ministry confirmed in a statement.
According to the new indictments, Assange conspired with, among other charges, piracy groups of Wolescik and Anonymus.
New evidence indicates that Assange also managed to gain unauthorized access to a government computer system for a NATO member state.
He was charged under the US espionage law for publishing in 2010 a large collection of classified files that explain in detail the aspects of the US military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Washington says the 48-year-old Australian helped intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal documents before he recklessly revealed secret sources around the world.
"The new charge by Julian Assange is yet another pathetic attempt by the Justice Department to deceive public opinion," WikiLeaks wrote on Twitter.
It is noteworthy that Assange is currently in the heavily-guarded Belmarsh prison (south of London), and is resisting a request by the United States to extradite him for trial on charges of espionage.
He took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012, after he violated a bail order to avoid separate legal procedures in Sweden, but British police forcibly removed him from the embassy building last year.