Australia: Ten's forthcoming Sunday Assange attack by @hamishNews.

Hamish McDonald's sources.

It pays to know who you are interviewing.

Karin Olsson

Karin Olsson is a Assange/WikiLeaks opponent at 'Expressen'
who has been writing anti-Assange diatribes for over two
years. Expressen is an anti-WikiLeaks conservative Swedish
tabloid owned by the Bonnier family. The Bonnier family
is a conservative, US aligned Swedish family who control
some 60% of Swedish media and hundreds of publications
and television stations around the world. Expressen
and its editor, Thomas Mattsson has been 'at war' with
WikiLeaks and Assange ever since Expressen's direct rival,
Aftonbladet, signed a deal with Assange in early August
2010. It was Expressen that, through its contacts in the
Swedish government, proclaimed to the world, falsely,
in Swedish and, unusually, in English, that Assange was
being "hunted" for a 'violent' double 'rape'. This is in
violation of Swedish press standards/laws which are to
keep identities secret in an investigation/prosecution
until sentence-even for the most severe crimes.

It was Expressen which earlier this year produced two front
page fabricated stories claiming WikiLeaks was engaged in
"diabolical measures" against Sweden. Expressen fasely
claimed to have a 'WikiLeaks memo' that purportedly
revealed how WikiLeaks had a secret plan to 'smear' all
of Sweden, had been 'spying' on the homes of Swedish
journalists, including the head of the influential
Swedish publishers' association, had 'stolen' classified
information on Swedish journalists from the Swedish
government, 'stolen' their tax records, was planning to
surround Swedish embassies with human chains and intended
to smear the Swedish Foreign Minister as a 'spy'. This led
to wide spread attacks on Assange & WikiLeaks throughout
the Swedish media, by the Swedish Foreign Minister,
Carl Bildt and by the Swedish ministry of defence (for
"blackmailing" the "entire nation of Sweden" to prevent
Assange's "extradition to the US").

Expressen's editor Thomas Mattsson was challenged to
publish the document - he refused. Mattsson was challenged
to debate the merits of the story - he refused. He
was challenged to print a right of reply - and refused
again. Mattsson's Expressen has produced a great many other
false stories or biased stories on Assange and WikiLeaks.

Hanne Kjöller:

HK is an opinion writer for DN, a center-right broadsheet
in tabloid format owned by the Bonnier family. She has been
penning anti-Assange articles since at least early 2011.

James Ball:

Ball is a protege, immediately former subordinate and
former student of David Leigh of the Guardian. David
Leigh is Assange's principal media "enemy" in the United
Kingdom. Leigh conducted a secret plot to try and cut
WikiLeaks out of its own 'Cablegate' publication. In
addition to this being in breach of contract, it placed
WikiLeaks related persons in the United States and
elsewhere at severe risk of arrest and imprisonment. This
is documented, in part, in the Der Spiegel book about
WikiLeaks. Der Spiegel refused to take part in the plot.

When WikiLeaks discovered the Leigh plot to breach the
terms of the Guardian's Cablegate contract, the Guardian
and WikiLeaks entered into legal conflict. On Nov 1 2010,
Assange "raided" the Guardian offices with two lawyers and
stated his intention to sue the editor Alan Rusbridger who
had signed the contract if the plot was not aborted. Within
the Guardian this is known as the "WikiLeaks ambush". The
Guardian returned to limited contractual compliance,
however it subsequently broke important security clauses
in the contract.

Leigh is the brother in law of the Guardian's editor
Alan Rusbridger and historically an influential figure in
Guardian management. The conflict poisoned the relationship
between WikiLeaks and the Guardian as a whole. In November
2011 Ball interned at WikiLeaks for two months. Leigh
offered Ball a job at the Guardian within a few days of the
commencement of his internship with WikiLeaks. In exchange
Ball secretly gave Leigh intelligence on the dispute and
internal WikiLeaks documents which he copied while Assange
was in solitary confinement at Wandsworth prison.

Once at the Guardian and working for Leigh, Ball became
Leigh's point man in the dispute. Reputations were at
stake. Who was perceived to have the most credibility
in the media industry and more broadly was vital to
which organization and which person's reputation would
survive. Guardian management, Leigh and Ball were motivated
to discredit WikiLeaks and Assange inorder to protect
themselves legally and reputationally.

Once working for Leigh, Ball produced a large number
of false or biased articles about WikiLeaks for
the Guardian. Guardian readers in literally tens
of thousands of comments, objected to the bias taken
against WikiLeaks and Assange by the Guardian. Perhaps
to cover the perception of an anti-WikiLeaks campaign
at the Guardian, Leigh and Ball concurrently "laundered"
attacks into other publications. Ball secretly "laundered"
attacks to Mark Hosenball, a WikiLeaks opponent at
Reuters (Hosenball had previously libeled WikiLeaks
when he worked for Newsweek. This contributed to his
retrenchment from Newsweek, which did not improve his
attitude to WikiLeaks once at Reuters). Ball also wrote
hostile articles on Assange for the New Statesman while
at the Guardian.

In a mere three weeks Leigh penned the Guardian's WikiLeaks
book after finding out about the imminent publication of a
WikiLeaks book by Der Spiegel documenting the November 1st
'confrontation'. Leigh originally titled the book as "The
rise and fall of WikiLeaks" until other Guardian management
intervened. The book disclosed the 'Cablegate' password
and other information used to protect WikiLeaks operations.

Leigh also engaged in a secret deal to craft a hostile
film, "WikiLeaks: Secrets & lies", known in documentary
circles as 'The Guardian documentary'. Leigh's involvement
was formally admitted to in a subsequent ethics
investigation (details at end).

In 2012 Ball moved to Washington and started a year long
internship for the Washington Post. Washington Post opinion
writers have previously called for the assassination of
Assange and the kidnapping of WikiLeaks government by
the United States. The Washington Post editorial board
recently called for sanctions against Ecuador for granting
Assange asylum.

Leigh and Ball together conducted dozens
of tawdry plots within London's liberal left media social
clique that interconnects the Guardian, New Statesman, the Index on Censorship, Private Eye and some parts of the BBC. This appears to have been a sustained attempt attempt to undermine WikiLeaks and Assange's standing before there could be effective legal or reputational redress.

Last year, while both were at the Guardian, Karin Olsson, from the conservative Swedish taboid 'Expressen' (see top), was commissioned to write an attack piece on Assange 'From Hero to Zero'.

Hamish's three "independent" critics are all directly connected and have agendas.

Many of these issues are discussed in the following documents:
- WikiLeaks Secrets and Lies Julian Assange interview
transcript http://wlstorage.net/file/cms/Folder 3/WIKILEAKS SECRETS AND LIES JULIAN ASSANGE INTERVIEWTRANSCRIPT.pdf
- Julian Assange - Response to Ofcom Preliminary View (25 June
2012) http://wlstorage.net/file/cms/Folder 2/5. JULIAN ASSANGE-RESPONSE TO OFCOM'S PRELIMINARY VIEW.pdf
http://rixstep.com/1/1/0/20111104,00.shtml

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