Wikileaks founder Julian Assange celebrated a decade in business – and 10 years of toying with journalists – by toying with them some more on Tuesday.
After inviting the media to a Berlin theatre with the promise of a devastating “October surprise”, the Australian-born activist – via live video-link from London – presented nothing at all.
Instead, with more than three weeks left in October, Mr Assange promised leaks of “significant material” on war, arms, oil, internet giant Google, mass surveillance – and the US presidential election candidates.
Mr Assange said his organisation was in possession of enough material to publish for 10 weeks but declined to be drawn further.
“It’s a very hard schedule [for] all the US-related election documents to come out before November 8th [election day]cuadorian embassy in London, his home since 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden on rape charges.
In August, Wikileaks released Democratic National Convention emails days before the party gathering to nominate Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential nominee.
He said it was “false” to claim that he did not like Mrs Clinton or was interested in harming her White House ambitions.
Asked if he felt any affinity with Mrs Clinton’s Republican rival, Donald Trump, Mr Assange replied: “I feel personal affinity really, I think, with all human beings.”
“I certainly feel sorry for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump,” he added. “These are two people that are tormented by their ambitions in different ways.”
Mr Assange and his allies used the Berlin event to remind the world of its revelations in the last decade: abuse at US detention camp at Guantánamo Bay; US diplomatic cables and other files about Washington’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Estranged Assange ally and former Wikileaks spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg described the Berlin event to local broadcaster RBB as “clever attention management”.
