Is murder of party worker linked to the leaked Democrat emails?
SPECULATION was swirling in Washington yesterday about whether the murder of a young Democratic Party worker could be linked to last month’s leaking of internal party emails.
Seth Rich, 27, was shot twice in the head in what appeared to be an attempted robbery near his home in a suburb of the US capital on July 10, but his belongings were not taken.
Two weeks later WikiLeaks, the website, published thousands of embarrassing internal emails which showed Democratic Party officials favouring Hillary Clinton over her rival Bernie Sanders.
The scandal led to the resignation of the party chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
This week, WikiLeaks put up a $20,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of Mr Rich’s killer.
Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, then appeared on Dutch television, where he refused to confirm or deny that Mr Rich was a source for the story.
He said: “Whistleblowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often take very significant risks. I’m suggesting that our sources take risks and they become concerned to see things occurring like that.
“We have to understand how high the stakes are in the United States and that our sources face serious risks.”
In a statement WikiLeaks added: “We treat threats towards any suspected WikiLeaks sources with extreme gravity.
“This should not be taken to imply that Seth Rich was a source to WikiLeaks or that his murder is connected to our publications. We hope our efforts will contribute to the family’s calls for information.”
Mr Rich was a computer worker developing a way for voters to locate polling stations. Joel Rich, the victim’s father called the theories about his son’s death “bizarre” and accused WikiLeaks of “playing a game”.
A police spokesman in Washington said there was “no information at this time” to suggest a link between his death and any other investigation.
The Clinton campaign has suggested that Russia was behind the hacking and leaking of the internal Democratic Party emails.