SECRET POWER: THE WAR ON WIKILEAKS
A new book by Italian investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi documents attempts to demonise and destroy Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, and her seven-year battle to access government information.
OWEN BOWCOTT
1 NOVEMBER 2022
Photo
Surveillance footage of Stefania Maurizi meeting Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy*
When the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was dragged out of Ecuador’s London embassy in handcuffs three years ago, he was clutching a book given to him by the Italian investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi.
Gore Vidal’s History of the National Security State argues that America’s ‘military-industrial-security complex’ exploits fear of the enemy in order to generate vast state subsidies. The Australian reinforced the message by shouting: “UK must resist”.
Maurizi had brought the volume to help the fugitive Assange keep his mind active during the six years and 10 months he spent inside his cramped diplomatic sanctuary. It was one of many visits she made.
A journalist with a Maths degree, she has written about cryptography. Her first contact with WikiLeaks was in 2009 when she received a call in the middle of the night asking for help verifying and interpreting a leaked audio file which hinted at Italian state-mafia deals during a rubbish collection crisis.
The following year Maurizi met Assange in Berlin. She had gone to talk to WikiLeaks about their Afghan War logs which contained secret files detailing Italian military participation in the war. Assange had flown in from Stockholm where Swedish police had just opened an investigation into allegations against him of rape and sexual molestation; his luggage had gone missing when he arrived in Germany.
Her book, Secret Power, is a passionate and well-paced defence of WikiLeaks and Assange published as the 51-year-old continues to resist extradition to the United States. If convicted of offences under the US Espionage Act, he faces prison sentences of up to 175 years.
This is not the first book about WikiLeaks but it is a comprehensive account – enlivened with eyewitness reporting – which follows the twists and turns of Assange’s life, WikiLeaks’ revelations, media falling-outs, the Swedish criminal investigation, court hearings, surveillance of his embassy bolt-hole, alleged plots to kill him and detention in Belmarsh high security prison.
CIA rendition
The narrative is bolstered by historical asides on such diverse matters as the first publicly available email encryption programmes, Assange’s conviction in 1996 for hacking (he was fined AUS$2,100) and the Guantanamo Bay detainee held because he lost a village lottery. The whistleblowers Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden inevitably feature prominently.
One well-chosen example is the February 2003 rendition of the imam Abu Omar. Snatched off a Milan street in daylight, he was first taken to an American air base in Aviano, near Venice, then removed to Egypt where he was subjected to torture involving, he later said, sexual assaults and electric shocks.
Despite 26 US citizens, many of them CIA agents, eventually being convicted for their part in the abduction, none have ever been returned to Italy to serve any of their jail sentences. Some were even pardoned by Italian presidents.
That pattern of immunity from serious punishment for senior officials has been all too frequently repeated. When the US General David Petraeus gave his lover and biographer eight notebooks full of classified material from his Afghan campaigns, he reached a plea bargain resulting only in two years’ probation and a $40,000 fine.
Demonisation
By contrast the pursuit of Assange has involved “demonisation” of the Australian, according to Maurizi who catalogues repeated attempts to destroy WikiLeaks that have allegedly gone as far as plans to kidnap and murder its members.
Accusations that WikiLeaks has put lives at risk by publishing leaked military and diplomatic documents have, she suggests, been a way of distracting the public from revelations about killings carried out by US troops.
Maurizi, who works for the Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano, has for the past seven years also been waging a solo freedom of information (FOI) battle seeking to establish why the sexual assault allegations against Assange were stalled at a preliminary stage for so long.
She submitted FOI requests in Sweden, Britain, the USA and Australia requesting files on the legal investigation and correspondence between prosecutors in the four countries.
Sweden – the first country, in 1766, to pass freedom of information legislation – was the most responsive. The documents she obtained showed that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in London had advised against questioning Assange in the UK, suggesting it would be better to interview him once he was returned to Stockholm. With Assange resisting extradition that effectively created years of legal paralysis.
Maurizi had to appeal to an information tribunal and contribute to costs out of her own pocket in order to extract relevant files from the CPS. Many, it turned out, were heavily redacted; other key exchanges between London and Stockholm had been deleted.
The tribunal eventually rejected her appeal for more documents but, significantly, did describe WikiLeaks as a media organisation – a journalistic status that US prosecutors refuse to acknowledge. The Swedish investigation was only finally dropped in November 2019.
Prosecutors said that, although the complainant’s evidence was credible, after nearly a decade the witnesses’ memories had faded. Assange always denied the allegations against him.
The blame for unedited documents being inadvertently released online in 2011, Maurizi maintains, lies with others. Her experience of WikiLeaks, she says, was that they checked and authenticated documents before publication. And it was a WikiLeaks editor, Sarah Harrison, she points out, who rescued Edward Snowden from Hong Kong and the threat of US prosecution.
This book provides fresh insights into a ferociously complex and controversial saga. After more than three years in Belmarsh prison, Assange has lodged an appeal against the decision approving his removal made by the former Home Secretary Priti Patel. The legal and political fight continues.
Secret Power: WikiLeaks and its Enemies is published by Pluto Press.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Owen Bowcott was on The Guardian for more than 30 years, most recently as legal affairs correspondent. He has also worked for BBC Panorama and The Daily Telegraph.
© 2022 - Declassified Media Ltd
As I read this I'm constantly drawn to the reminder that this is the situation painted of President Putin, Russia & off course the US elected Presidents.
7
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2 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Another US hating post by Russian Trolls Spayed Bear, whom we all know sucks Putin's dick, and Jolanta, both "Aussies" (yeah, right, wink wink) who for some reason do not align themselves with their "own country's" official position on supporting the US and sanctioning Russia for their crimes against humanity.
Mofo1953
Level 9
Nov 13, 2022
0
What makes you think that your obnoxious response enhances other's opinion of USA & its citizens or validates of the attitude of the Australian government having been bullied by US intimidation?
You are pathetic.
@FrayedBear fuck off troll or should i say tovarich? Go continue sucking Putin's cock.
@FrayedBear sure, you aren't, right? I'm not a cocksucking troll like you, comrade, tovarich, dosvedanya motherfucker!
@Mofo1953 you continue to enhance the opinion that Americans are infantile pathetics. Keep frothing 
@FrayedBear and you continue to suck Putin's dick until he comes and you swallow, you have been unmasked as a russian troll, a pathetic little bitch that is really tiresome because nobody falls for your US hating crap, except the moderators here that for some reason don't block your bullshit as any other social media outlet would, pure putrid russian propaganda, now fuck off, continue being the Russian troll bitch you are, dosvedanya tovarich.
@Mofo1953 Slow 
for living in your delusion & #stupidity.
The originator of this site provided a site for the benefit of all not just pathetic poor examples of American citizenry who want censorship because it disturbs the monopoly of their delusion. Like the Ukrainian welfare clown you want your crippling delusion.
@FrayedBear who gives a flying fuck unless you post it here, are you really that stupid that you believe you're convincing anyone here of your Russian propaganda? I guess you are. Not only a cocksucking troll but an imbecile cocksucking troll. You have been unmasked a long time ago, give it up dude, you're not swaying anybody here, you're not accomplishing your mission, your boss would be upset for being an abject failure, the only way you're not expectorated by your daddy is because you're only good at cocksucking and swallowing. Keep on keeping on tovarich, you have zero credibility yet you continue to post your US hating bull crap. What a pathetic little bitch.
Julian Assange is right where he belongs.
barjoe
Level 9
Nov 11, 2022
2
Really, why is that? I guess it is the same as Americans do not want certain books to be red, way too embarrassing.
@Jolanta Julian Assange stole and leaked thousands of emails belonging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, a private citizen. He released them to right wing press through WikiLeaks. Assange did this for Russia at the behest of Vladimir Putin. He played a key role in Russia’s effort to elect Donald Trump in 2016. It succeeded. I hate the bastard. He's not a journalist protecting his sources, he's a spy and a thief. No better than anyone else being imprisoned for espionage.
@barjoe Didn't he do the same with Putin's dirty laundry & a dozen others around the world?
And if he was Putin's bitch don't you think that he would have run to Russia like Snowden did?
@Jolanta He hacked into the email server of John Podesta, a private citizen and leaked them, to harm the candidacy of Hillary Clinton and help elect Donald Fuckity-Fuck Trump. I hope he dies in prison. He helped an effort to almost destroy the oldest democracy on the planet. He coerced a member of the military, Bradley Manning (Chelsea) who had security clearance, to steal secret documents which he leaked for his own purposes. Russia had their hands all over both "efforts'. I hope he lives the rest of his life in torment. He's a hero to many misguided people, to me he's a international spy and criminal.
@barjoe, @Jolanta now what was that about Hillary being instrumental in the assassination of Gaddafi, the invasion of Europe by a million+ Africans, the promulgation of Ukraine fascist action against Russia?
And while at it remind me which country created mayhem in Afghanistan by funding terrorrists when Russia was there & who it was that worked assiduously to create the downfall of the USSR to try to have US capitalism take over?
@Jolanta I'm aware of much bad US foreign policy in the past and I don't blame Assange for them. I do blame him for leaking derogatory lies to Vladimir Fuckity-Fuck Putin, who used WikiLeaks to threaten our democracy in the USA. I know he's a hero to most Australians and many misguided Americans. To me he's a steaming pile of 
.
@barjoe LoL. Many worldwide think all Americans a "steaming pile of " but we don't go around perjuring ourselves & bullying others into committing perjury to result in an individual citizen being imprisoned & driven mad through the torture.
The USA has now demonstrated that it is willing to apply the same behaviour against whole nations. Chile, Venezuela, Vietnam, China, Korea, Cuba, Russia to name a few.
@barjoe like Israel & UAE? You continuously bleat about non existant Russian interference in American politics but constantly ignore the meddling by these two miscreant states. "Washington has approved sales of some of the most advanced US-made weaponry, including MQ-9 Predator drones and F-35 fighter jets, to the UAE. No other Arab nation has been afforded such privileges because US leaders have sought to avoid “diminishing Israel’s qualitative military edge” in the Middle East, the Post said."
US intel report vilifies key ally – WaPo [rt.com]
@FrayedBear Do you work for RT,, You cum in your pants for your beloved Mother Russia.
@barjoe There you go again. People who do want to keep themselves informed do watch different media programs from around the world. They know who owns them and how it is being misconstrued. You who live it the US only knows what the US media tells you so you are not very well informed, besides you are incredibly biased.
@Jolanta What? I'm ignorant because I won't post links from Russian State Media? You consider legitimate news sources originating from the US to be propaganda? You are as jaded as @FrayedBear.
@barjoe not as effective as your homespun American media though. Look how it has infected the world with propaganda on the US crimes against humanity with its wars in Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia et al, to day nothing of Covid19, anti communism, etc.
Your media helped disintegrate the USSR and replace it, according again to your media, with US inspired autocracy & criminal mafia style theft of the people's assets & wealth.
Get real Joe.
@barjoe RT closed US operations because of the sanctions & bars imposed by your childish Biden government imposing censorship on them.
@FrayedBear Is that what they told you? Biden had zero to do with it. Some cable outlets stopped carrying them so they pulled the plug.
@FrayedBear USA doesn't have an official news agency like totalitarian regimes. Russian Federation being one of them.
@barjoe isn't it called the White House, Senate & Pentagon Press Offices? And to say nothing of the CIA and FBI pressoffices along with whatever other public office departments exist in the USA & its individual states?
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