Russia's Putin Raps West Over Assange Arrest

MOSCOW (Reuters) -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange showed the West was hypocritical in its criticism of Russia's record on democracy.

When asked about leaked U.S. diplomatic cables which cast him as Russia's "alpha-dog" ruler of a corrupt bureaucracy, Putin questioned whether the U.S. Foreign Service was a "crystal-clean source of information".