June 27, 2021 | BY TYLER DURDEN | Zero Hedge | Source
“The US government’s case against Julian Assange may be on shaky legal ground after one of their main witnesses, Icelander Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson, admitted to fabricating key accusations contained in the DOJ’s indictment, according to stunning admissions to Stundin magazine.
Thordarson, a documented sociopath and convicted pedophile who also engaged in a “wide-ranging financial fraud,” was recruited by US authorities as a key witness against Assange after he misled them into believing he was a close associate of the WikiLeaks founder. He also lied about his position within the whistleblower organization – admitting that he established “avenues of communication with journalists and had media pay for lavish trips abroad where he mispresented himself as an official representative of WikiLeaks.”
He also admitted to stealing documents from WikiLeaks staff by copying their hard drives, including that of WikiLeaks lawyer Renata Avila, who worked for both the organization and Assange.
“In fact he had volunteered on a limited basis to raise money for Wikileaks in 2010 but was found to have used that opportunity to embezzle more than $50,000 from the organization.”
What’s more, Thordarson confessed to Stundin that he “continued his crime spree whilst working with the Department of Justice and FBI and receiving a promise of immunity from prosecution.”
The United States is currently seeking Assange’s extradition from the United Kingdom in order to try him for espionage relating to the release of leaked classified documents. If convicted, he could face up to 175 years in prison. The indictment has sparked fears for press freedoms in the United States and beyond and prompted strong statements in support of Assange from Amnesty International, Reporters without borders, the editorial staff of the Washington Post and many others.
US officials presented an updated version of an indictment against him to a Magistrate court in London last summer. The veracity of the information contained therein is now directly contradicted by the main witness, whose testimony it is based on. -Stundin
The addition to Assange’s original indictment was meant to bolster the DOJ’s case by alleging illegal activity in Iceland – including attempts to hack into the computers of members of parliament and record their conversations.
Thordarson now admits that Assange never asked him to hack or access phone recordings of MPs, and now says that he received files from a third party who claimed to have recorded the officials – offering to share them with Assange despite claiming to have no idea what they actually contained. Thordarson claims he never looked at the files and has no idea if they contained audio recordings as his third party source suggests. What’s more, Assange never instructed or asked him to access computers to try and find any such recordings, he now says.”
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