A COLLECTION OF memorabilia associated with Julian Assange is being auctioned off by Wikileaks in a bid to raise funds for the whistleblowing website.
A sachet of prison coffee and a laptop computer are among the items being auctioned off on eBay, according to a statement on the Wikileaks Twitter page.
Many of the items up for sale make much of their association with Assange, the controversial founder of Wikileaks who is currently fighting extradition to Sweden over allegations of sexual offences against two women.
The coffee sachet, starting at €274, is said to have been smuggled out of the prison where Assange was held on remand last year, prior to his release on bail in December:
The laptop computer was used to “prepare the cables for media partners and releases” and would allow the buyer to opportunity to “search the cables in true WikiLeaks style on their own exclusive machine”.
Its starting price is €6,865:
Also on offer is a signed photograph of Julian Assange taken whilst he was under house arrest at Ellingham Hall in Norfolk, England earlier this summer. Its starting price is €732:
Wikileaks has come under increasing financial pressure after a number of its sources of funding were shut down earlier this year.
The organisation has been heavily criticised in some quarters for its release of thousands of US diplomatic cables which some say put the lives of people – named as sources in the cables - at risk.
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