PayPal cut Wikileaks on US advice

Datacell has accused Visa Europe and Mastercard of putting “political influence over the law”

The company that enables Wikileaks to accept credit and debit card donations says it will take legal action against Visa Europe and Mastercard.

IT firm Datacell said it would move immediately to try to force the two companies to resume allowing payments to the whistle-blowing website.

Iceland-based Datacell had earlier said the move by Visa and Mastercard could harm its own business.

Visa Europe and Mastercard have yet to comment on the legal threat.

Visa Europe suspended payments to Wikileaks on Tuesday, ahead of carrying out an investigation into the website.

It said it wanted to determine whether the nature of Wikileaks’ business “contravenes Visa operating rules”.

Mastercard would only say that it was suspending payments to Wikileaks “until the situation is resolved”.

Datacell’s chief executive Andreas Fink urged Visa to “just simply do their business where they are good at – transferring money”.

The company added that the suspension by Visa would last for an initial seven days, but this has yet to be confirmed by the US giant.

The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, was arrested in London on Tuesday, connected to sexual assault allegations in Sweden.

He was refused bail, but has vowed to fight extradition.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.