London: Amid new revelations that Julian Assange had disguised himself as an old woman to escape American intelligence officers, the controversial Wikileaks founder has accused US lawmakers of calling for his “assassination”.
The New York Post quoted Assange as saying that the condemnation of Wikileaks by American politicians was “completely outrageous,” and “the worst form of censorship we’ve seen since the 1950s, since the McCarthy era.”
“The statements by the Vice President [Joe] Biden saying that I was a high tech terrorist ... Sarah Palin calling [for] me to be treated like the Taliban, to be hunted down. These are calls for my assassination or for the assassination of my staff,” he added.
Meanwhile, extracts from the Australian-born journalist’s biography "WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange``s War on Secrecy," have revealed that he had disguised himself as an old woman to evade US intelligence officers who he believed were following him.
The book also claimed that Assange, who was in England at the time of the cross-dressing, became convinced that CIA agents were following him, despite "no obvious signs of pursuit."
"You can``t imagine how ridiculous it was. He stayed dressed up as an old woman for more than two hours." WikiLeaks`` James Ball told the authors.
The extracts of the book, written by Guardian newspaper journalists David Leigh and Luke Harding, also showed that the hacker did not know his biological father until the age of 27.
Assange``s whistleblower website created hue and cry across the world last year, after it leaked thousands of secret US diplomatic cables as it endangered relationship among different nations.
American investigators had tried, and reportedly failed, to establish a link between Assange and US Army soldier Bradley Manning, a detained disillusioned private who is accused of illegally downloading thousands of government documents and passing them to an authorized person.
The whistleblower founder faces extradition to Sweden over sexual assault charges.
ANI
