A FORMER WIKILEAKS spokesperson says that he destroyed about 3,500 potentially explosive unpublished documents that had been forwarded to the whistleblowing website.
Speaking to the German newspaper Der Spiegel, Daniel Domscheit-Berg that the destroyed documents included a complete copy of the United States’ no-fly list – a list containing the name of terrorism suspects not allowed to board flights in the country.
Domscheit-Berg, who left Wikileaks last year, says that he “shredded” the files in order to prevent sources from being compromised.
Wikileaks said that Domscheit-Berg had deleted a significant number of documents, tweeting: ”We can confirm that the DDB claimed destroyed data included five gigabytes from the Bank of America” and: ”We can confirm that the DDB claimed destroyed whistleblower data included the internals of around 20 neo-Nazi organizations”.
Wikileaks also tweeted that Domscheit-Berg ”claimed destroyed data included US intercept arrangements for over a hundred internet companies”.
Domscheit-Berg did not confirm the additional allegations the BBC reports.
Domscheit-Berg insists that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange could not guarantee the safety of the sources – however, in a statement, Assange accused Domscheit-Berg of attempting to blackmail Wikileaks over the documents:
Mr Domscheit-Berg has repeatedly attempted to blackmail WikiLeaks by threatening to make available, to forces that oppose WikiLeaks, these private communications and to which Mr. Domscheit-Berg is not a party… Mr Domscheit-Berg has refused to return the various materials he has stolen, saying he needs them, solely, to carry out this threat… (he) has already, secretly, and with malicious intent, disclosed portions of the private communications content to other parties, to the harm of WikiLeaks.
Domscheit-Berg, who is the co-founder of Openleaks, worked for Wikileaks as a spokesman during 2010 but left after a reported “personality clash” with Assange.
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