Julian Assange accuses Guardian of putting lives at risk by leaking classified files as he fights extradition to US
JULIAN Assange’s lawyer has accused The Guardian of putting secret sources’ lives at risk by leaking files.
The WikiLeaks founder is fighting extradition to the US over the leaking of hundreds of thousands of documents in 2010 and 2011.
He is accused of conspiring to steal from and hack into US Department of Defence computers, along with former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
Prosecutors claim he knowingly put hundreds of sources around the world at risk of torture and death by publishing unredacted documents containing names or other identifying details.
But Mark Summers QC, representing Assange, argued on Tuesday that the extradition request "boldly and brazenly" misrepresents the facts.
GUARDIAN BOOK
Mr Summers said WikiLeaks had begun redacting a tranche of 250,000 leaked cables in November 2010, working with media partners around the world.
He blamed the publication of the unredacted database of documents on a 2011 book from the Guardian newspaper about WikiLeaks, which contained a 58-key password.
Mr Summers said: "Far from being a reckless, unredacted release, the world knows, every reporter in this room knows, the US government knows, that what actually occurred was that one of the media partners published a book in February 2011 and published the password to the unredacted materials.
One of the media partners published a book in February 2011 and published the password to the unredacted materials
Mark Summers QC
“It enabled the entire world to publish those unredacted materials in a book and they circulated on the internet, not on the WikiLeaks site, but on other sites.
"None of them have been prosecuted, some of which are US-based, all of them published first, some of them are still there."
Mr Summers said it was not until months later that it was discovered the password could be used along with a mirrored site to access the unredacted database, which was revealed by German news outlet Der Freitag on August 25 2011.
CLINTON CALL
The court heard, in a phone call to the White House on the same day, WikiLeaks had asked to speak to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as "a matter of urgency" over fears the information was about to be dumped online.
Mr Summers said Assange had warned: "I don't understand why you're not seeing the urgency of this.
"Unless we do something, then people's lives are put at risk."
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A spokesman for The Guardian said: “It is entirely wrong to say The Guardian's 2011 WikiLeaks book led to the publication of unredacted US government files.
“The book contained a password which the authors had been told by Julian Assange was temporary and would expire and be deleted in a matter of hours.
“The book also contained no details about the whereabouts of the files.”
Assange has been held on remand in Belmarsh prison since last September after serving a 50-week jail sentence for breaching his bail conditions while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
He entered the building in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over sex offence allegations, which he has always denied and were subsequently dropped.
The hearing continues today.
