Julian Assange accused of antisemitism again over leaked Wikileaks messages calling reporter “rat” and “Jewish”

Leaked Twitter messages reportedly written by Julian Assange, the controversial founder of Wikileaks, included a disturbing attack on a journalist.

In August 2016, Associated Press journalist Raphael Satter had helped to write a story about the damage done to individuals by Wikileaks’ unredacted disclosures, and when he tweeted about it, Mr Assange reportedly wrote a message in a private Twitter messaging group using the Wikileaks verified Twitter account: “He’s always been a rat. But he’s Jewish and engaged with the ((()))) issue.”

The round brackets refer to a neo-Nazi device called “echoes” whereby they placed Jewish people’s names between three sets of round brackets in order to identify them for targeting. In response, many prominent figures decided to appropriate the device by using it in their own name on Twitter.

Wikileaks previously referred to the round brackets, tweeting in July 2016: “Tribalist symbol for establishment climbers? Most of our critics have 3 (((brackets around their names))) & have black-rim glasses. Bizarre.” Jews are often accused of tribal collusion by neo-Nazis. The tweet was later deleted.

In 2013, a Wikileaks employee said that he had left the organisation because he said that Mr Assange had close links to notorious antisemite Israel Shamir.

In 2011, Andrew O’Hagan, who had hoped to ghostwrite Mr Assange’s autobiography, claimed that Mr Assange had “uttered, late at night, many casual libels, many sexist or antisemitic remarks”.

Mr Assange currently lives in the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he has claimed political asylum.

He has previously denied being antisemitic, saying: “We treasure our strong Jewish support and staff, just as we treasure the support from pan-Arab democracy activists and others who share our hope for a just world.”