WikiLeaks leadership in crisis as founder faces disputes

MELBOURNE - The leadership of website WikiLeaks seems to be in crisis as the organisation’s German spokesman is set to quit over disputes with founder Julian Assange.

Daniel Schmitt, the German spokesman for the whistle-blower website said he would leave the organisation because the leadership “lost the faith that we are all pulling together.”

“We all had an insane amount of stress in recent months,” News.com.au quoted Schmitt as telling Der Spiegel.

“A few mistakes happened, which is OK, as long as people learn from them. For that to happen, though, one has to admit them. We have lost the faith that we are all pulling together,” he said.

WikiLeaks published nearly 77,000 classified documents on the Afghan war in July, leading to criticism that the website was putting soldiers’ and civilians’ lives at risk.

Schmitt criticised WikiLeaks’ focus on large projects, such as the Afghan war files. He said the organisation was ignoring the importance of smaller national documents and blamed Assange for the problem.

“I tried again and again to push for that, but Julian Assange reacted to any criticism with the allegation that I was disobedient to him and unloyal [sic] to the project,” he said.

He added that other WikiLeaks employees were also dissatisfied with the organisation.

“There is a lot of resentment there and some others, like me, will leave,” said Schmitt, who also revealed that his real name is Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a fact he kept hidden until now because of security fears.

However, WikiLeaks has called the report “misleading.”

“Spiegel report Schmitt resigned which is misleading. Schmitt was suspended a month ago,” their Twitter post read. (ANI)