The founder of WikiLeaks on Sunday disputed assertions by US officials that disclosures by his anti-secrecy organisation and fellow leaker Edward Snowden have put lives at risk.
Julian Assange, in an interview with ABC television, was asked to respond to recent remarks by US Secretary of State John Kerry that people could die as a consequence of explosive revelations by Snowden, the fugitive former National Security Agency contractor who blew the lid on vast US phone and Internet surveillance programs. Other US officials have repeatedly made the same assertion.
"We have heard this rhetoric. I myself was subject to precisely this rhetoric two, three years ago. And it all proved to be false," Assange said. "We had this terrible discussion about - which even exists in some of the tabloid press today - about it causing harm, but not a single US government official, no one from the Pentagon, any government, said any of our revelations in the past six years caused anyone to come to physical harm," he said. "And the revelations by Snowden, these are even more abstract."
Assange spoke from the Ecuadoran embassy in London where he has been holed up for a year to avoid being sent to Sweden. He is wanted there for questioning linked to rape allegations. The activist fears that if he is handed over to Scandinavian country, he will be passed onto the United States over a huge trove of sensitive leaks - diplomatic cables and Iraq and Afghanistan war logs - several years ago that left Washington red faced. Assange and others linked to WikiLeaks are currently assisting Snowden, who caused an uproar with disclosures of secret US documents related to the surveillance programs.
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