Maajid: These Are My Three Charges Against Julian Assange

20 May 2017, 14:51 | Updated: 20 May 2017, 16:26

Swedish prosecutors have dropped their investigation into rape allegation against Julian Assange - but Maajid Nawaz has some charges against him of his own.

The WikiLeaks founder yesterday (Friday) described the end of a rape allegations inquiry as an ‘important victory’, but he still faces arrest in London if he leaves the Ecuadorian embassy.

Maajid Nawaz said while this marks the end of one set of charges, he has some of his own he thinks Assange should face up to. 

He said: "What kind of man believes in transparency for the entire world, in other words, anyone who is unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of one of his data dumps, and yet, doesn't subject himself, nor allow himself to be subjected to that very same transparency. 

"So my first charge to you, Mr Assange, is one of, not just hypocrisy...you didn't even afford us the same opportunity to hold you to that same scrutiny that you wish to hold everyone else and every government in the rest of the world. 

He went on: "Your USP is transparency, and yet you fall short on the very thing you're selling to the rest of us.

"Charge number two Mr Assange is the following: unredacted leaks. Unredacted dumps of masses of data. And what I mean by unredacted...private information, whereby names of individuals, who are working in sensitive areas, are not erased from your document leaks, isn't just irresponsible, it is, I'd say, verging on criminally negligent. 

"Because real lives are at stake. Real heroes, real heroes, who are prepared to face the consequences of their actions, in places like Afghanistan, or Syria, or Iraq, who are intelligence operatives, working with the allied forces in these countries to stop, real, nasty terrorists."

He continued: "They're risking their lives to work with the CIA, with MI6, to try and stop the worst terrorist groups that we've known in our lifetimes. 

"And yet, when you dump you data onto the world, you fail to redact their names, and thereby you put them in direct danger." 

Watch the clip to find out Maajid's third charge.