Ok, taking the second link (since I tend to respect the Guardian a lot):

> When I intervened in February 2011 to ask Wikileaks whether they could ensure embassy cables had not been handed over to the dictatorship in Belarus (in particular the government’s secret police, the KGB) via a Wikileaks employee, Israel Shamir - accused of being a Holocaust denier - they refused to comment.

I take that as a tacit admission that this could definitely be the case but that Assange still backs Shamir for some reason. Maybe Shamir has power over him in some form or other, maybe he could do more damage, maybe they are just friends.

But in a way this question is also asking to prove a negative, I don't think Assange could prove to any standard that such a hand over had not happened, the best someone could do is to prove that it had happened.

Shamir would be the one to ask if it had happened or not, not Assange (who would have to believe whatever Shamir told him).

Has there been any recent coverage of this?

> Even after photographic evidence was produced apparently showing Shamir outside the office of the Head of the Presidential Administration in Minsk

I don't see how this is evidence of a document handover.

> and President Lukashenko had made a bizarre announcement stating he was founding his own Wikileaks to expose the opposition,

Indeed, that's pretty bizarre but Lukashenko is an idiot so this should come as no surprise.

> no attempts were made by Assange to protect dissidents.

What do they expect him to do to 'protect dissidents', I don't see this as an actionable item until it mentions specifically what is required. I also don't see any dissidents calling for his head, rather the opposite, they invited him to sit on a panel and they invited him to be there at the premiere of that film.

> Of those “exposed” by Soviet Belarus using cables it claimed were gifted to Lukashenko by Shamir were Andrei Sannikov, a former presidential candidate who was reportedly tortured and Vladimir Neklyayev, the writer and former president of Belarusian PEN. Oleg Bebenin, Sannikov’s former press secretary, was also defamed. Bebenin was found dead in suspicious circumstances the day before I was supposed to meet him in Minsk (I attended his funeral and there are strong suspicions of foul play).

Again, I don't doubt that but why would that be linked to Assange?

> Assisting a dictatorship to defame the dead is pretty low.

That's quite a leap of imagination, to go from a refusal to comment to active assistance to 'defame the dead'.

> Former Wikileaks employee James Ball broke ranks and claimed to Index that Assange personally blocked any attempts at investigation and had covered up for Shamir.

That's bad but disgruntled wikileaks people have said all kinds of stuff in the past rather little of which ended up sticking in the longer term. That's why I asked if there has been any more recent follow-up to this.

Usually this translates into: 'I didn't get my way and now I'll harm you' or some variation on that theme. As a former employer I've had my share of this and it never surprises me what people will get up to once their relationship with you is over.

> Assange’s lack of remorse could not have been better demonstrated when he joined a panel discussion on Belarus alongside political dissidents but entirely failed to acknowledge any concerns over his personal behaviour.

And why would he, given that all of the above amounts to him not wanting to comment on the Shamir case.

If with 'personal behavior' they are referring to other areas of his life then that's another matter entirely but that's not clear from the context here and again we're making some pretty tenuous links between otherwise unrelated items.

-- Ok, enough about that, so here is my personal view, uncensored and without holding back.

I'd be more than happy to support an alternative to wikileaks, with funds or any other kind of resource at my disposal because I believe that wikileaks or something like it is badly needed as a counterweight to the surveillance states in-the-making. Julian Assange is a flawed character, but no more flawed than say a Bill Clinton, a George Bush or a Tony Blair, to name a couple of random individuals and given the degree of dedication and personal sacrifice he's made for his cause I think we owe the man the benefit of the doubt until there is actual hard evidence against him.

Even then, we need to see the wikileaks aspect of him separate from the personal aspects, we afford that kind of protection to just about everybody else, so why not to Assange.

It would be nice if the leaders of institutions like wikileaks would be saints in every respect so that their opposition would not find such easy hand holds for detraction, but given the nature of the territory I highly doubt that will ever be the case. On a personal level I think Assange definitely has flaws but the Wikileaks project and what it has achieved should be looked at separately. In no way do I wish to make the suggestion that the one should excuse the other, and in no way do I want to suggest that the Shamir affair should not be looked into in detail, and it would be very nice to know why Assange still stands by someone that has clearly done a ton of damage to Wikileaks.