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The Amateur Data Leak That Undid Julian Assange
Jose ‘Pepe’ Martín was a little-known journalist and convicted conman — and then he got his hands on footage of the WikiLeaks founder in his embassy sanctuary
On April 10, WikiLeaks called a press conference to denounce what they claimed was a bizarre attempt to blackmail the organization. A “dubious group of individuals” in Spain, WikiLeaks editor in chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said, had demanded a multimillion euro payout, or they would publish a cache of surveillance footage of Assange inside Ecuador’s British embassy in London. The group even sent sample images as proof: one showed Assange playing with his cat.
Hrafnsson claimed that the WikiLeaks founder had been the victim of a “Truman Show-like” spying operation, in his view, as part of wider attempts by the U.S. to force Assange out of the embassy and have him extradited. Yet speaking to reporters, Hrafnsson couldn’t conceal his bemusement at the amateurish attempt to extract money from WikiLeaks.
The professional quality of the surveillance of Assange within the embassy itself initially led WikiLeaks to ask whether they were dealing with the Ecuadorian intelligence service essentially spying on its own government. In fact, WikiLeaks, at the time, was in…
