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Assange claims ‘smear campaign’

Posted on August 23rd, 2010 at 11:58 by John Sinteur in category: News -- Write a comment

[Quote]:

Julian Assange, founder of the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, has said the now-dropped charge of rape levelled against him in Sweden was "a smear campaign".

Assange told Al Jazeera on Sunday that while he had been forewarned by Australian intelligence on August 11 to expect a campaign against him, it was unclear who was behind it.

"It is clearly a smear campaign … the only question is who was involved.

"We can have some suspicions about who would benefit, but without direct evidence I would not be willing to make a direct allegation."

Assange said that the accusations were completely untrue and expected all charges to be dropped on Monday, adding that his lawyers were in the process of arranging a meeting with the prosecutors.

He also said that this was just one of many attempts to discredit him.

"This is the first sexual related we’ve had, but we have seen 14 fabricated

documents, for example, that have appeared in various places about this organisation which have been shown to be clear fakes," he said.

"So there are significant forces pushing to perceive things in a particular way".

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