*Mr Galloway, a frequent critic of the US and UK governments, said Mr Assange's "only crime was to expose, through Wikileaks, malfeasance by states including our own and the US on a truly gargantuan scale".
In a thirty minute podcast, the controversial anti-war MP said it was "an extraordinary coincidence that public enemy number one, Julian Assange, somehow gets inveigled with two women with incredibly complex political backgrounds who just, at the right time, come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against him".
"Let me tell you, I think that Julian Assange's personal sexual behaviour is sordid, disgusting, and I condemn it," he said.
"But even taken at its worst, if the allegations made by these two women were true, 100 per cent true, and even if a camera in the room captured them, they don't constitute rape.
"At least not rape as anyone with any sense can possibly recognise it. And somebody has to say this."
'Factually incorrect'
The Bradford West MP suggested one of the women had claimed she invited Mr Assange back to her flat, had consensual sex with him and then "woke up to him having sex with her again - something which can happen, you know".
On the issue of whether this would constitute rape or not, Mr Galloway suggested that "not everybody needs to be asked prior to each insertion".
"Some people believe that when you go to bed with somebody, take off your clothes, and have sex with them and then fall asleep, you're already in the sex game with them.
"It might be really bad manners not to have tapped her on the shoulder and said, 'do you mind if I do it again?'
"It might be really sordid and bad sexual etiquette, but whatever else it is, it is not rape or you bankrupt the term rape of all meaning." *