Dutch teen admits to Wiki-related hackings

AMSTERDAM: The Dutch public prosecutor said a 16-year-old boy admitted attacking the websites of MasterCard and Visa in support of WikiLeaks. The suspect , who is from The Hague, will be held in custody for 13 days, the prosecutor said in a release on its website on Friday. His name wasn’t released.

The Dutch public prosecutor’s website has also been “completely down for a short period,” Friday, following a cyber attack, the agency said in a separate statement. The attack was probably related to the teen’s ap-prehension , according to the statement.

The detention of the 16-year-old comes as the US Justice Department is examining cyber attacks that have been blamed on WikiLeaks supporters. MasterCard’s website was slowed this week by a flood of traffic in a denial-of-service attack after the company blocked payments to WikiLeaks via its network . MasterCard, the world’s second-biggest payments processor, and Lon-don-based Visa Europe said on December 7 they were suspending use of their networks by Wiki-Leaks after the organisation on November 28 be-gan publishing secret US military and State Department documents on-line.