A recently published book by a former employee of WikiLeaks, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, argues that Julian Assange maintained close ties to a notorious antisemite.
According to Inside WikiLeaks: My time with Julian Assange at the world's most dangerous website, website founder Mr Assange considered giving Israel Shamir, WikiLeaks' representative in Russia, a pseudonym after news reports surfaced of Shamir's antisemitic statements and links to Holocaust deniers.
WikiLeaks is threatening to take legal action against Mr Domscheit-Berg who, it says, "has falsely misrepresented himself in the press as a programmer, computer scientist, security expert, architect, editor, founder, director and spokesman [for WikiLeaks]".
The whistleblower website also denies any collaboration with Shamir. However, this contradicts WikiLeaks' spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson's admission on Swedish public radio in December 2010 that Shamir was indeed associated with the website.