Court told Assange leaks ‘useful’ to al Qaeda

Julian Assange helped Osama bin Laden hunt American informants in the Middle East by publishing classified documents online, a London court heard yesterday, as US lawyers said some sources had ‘‘subsequently disappeared’’.

The WikiLeaks founder faces extradition to the US on 17 charges related to obtaining and disclosing US defence information and one of conspiring with Chelsea Manning to hack a government computer.

Over a cacophony of loudhailers, sirens and whistles from around 100 protesters outside Woolwich Crown Court, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser heard that the 48-year-old Australian ‘‘likely put human rights activists, journalists, advocates, religious leaders, dissidents and their families at risk of serious harm, torture or even death’’, by disseminating the materials in an unredacted form.

James Lewis QC, for the US government, outlined how documents recovered at the Abbottabad safe house of al Qaeda leader Bin Laden had only been made public by WikiLeaks and said it was clear evidence the material Assange published ‘‘was useful’’ to US enemies.

He added that a 2010 article in The New

York Times – ‘‘Taliban study WikiLeaks to hunt informants’’ – explicitly showed how it used the site. ‘‘The US is aware of sources whose unredacted names and other identifying information was contained in classified documents who subsequently disappeared. Although the US can’t prove at this point that their disappearance was the result of being outed by WikiLeaks.’’

He said most of the charges related to ‘‘straightforward criminal activity’’; a ‘‘conspiracy to steal from and hack into’’ the defence department computer system with Manning, a former US army intelligence analyst.

Assange appeared in the dock wearing glasses and a grey suit. He gestured to supporters, including John Shipman, his father.

Edward Fitzgerald QC, representing Mr Assange, claimed the extradition request was part of a wider political war on journalists under President Donald Trump.

Fitzgerald later said Assange’s actions had been misrepresented, adding: ‘‘WikiLeaks only published the unredacted material after they had been published by others who have never faced prosecution.’’

The defence also claimed that Assange had been offered ‘‘a pre-emptive pardon’’ in exchange for helping the president find the source of the Democratic National Committee leaks, known as ‘‘the Russia investigation’’. –