A SWISS BANK has frozen a bank account belonging to Julian Assange, founder of the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks.

PostFinance posted a statement on its website, saying that Assange had “provided false information regarding his place of residence” during the account opening process.

The statement added:

Assange cannot provide proof of residence in Switzerland and thus does not meet the criteria for a customer relationship with PostFinance. For this reason, PostFinance is entitled to close his account.

The BBC reports that the Wikileaks claims includes that the account includes a defence fund and personal assets worth €31,000. Assange is wanted in Sweden over in connection with allegations of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion. He denies all the charges.

Wikileaks has angered the United States by publishing hundreds of secret US diplomatic cables, the latest of which include an extensive list of facilities around the world that the US describes as vital to its national security.

Meanwhile, a European arrest warrant has has reached the UK authorities. Assange is believed to be hiding somewhere in south-west England.

Last week, Wikileaks was forced to change its web address after the company operating the wikileaks.org domain name, EveryDNS, pulled its services. On Saturday PayPal suspended the donations account of the WikiLeaks website.

Paypal issued a statement explaining its actions, saying that its service cannot be used for “any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity”.