【Compilation/Observer Network Liu Qian】
Recently, the Icelandic media has exposed a "scandal" of the US government.
A key witness in the U.S. Department of Justice's lawsuit against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange admitted in an interview with Icelandic media that he had committed perjury. Not only that, but the witness was also convicted of embezzlement, financial fraud and sexual assault on underage boys, and chose to cooperate with the FBI in order to escape punishment.
According to Icelandic media Stundin reported on the 27th, the key witness was named Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson, who became an informant of the US FBI in August 2011. He managed to convince others that he was a close associate of Assange, a high-ranking figure in the WikiLeaks organization, and that the United States regarded him as a "star witness," but in reality he was just an ordinary and bad volunteer of the organization. He worked on a WikiLeaks fundraiser in 2010 and was later found to have embezzled more than $50,000 from it.
Since Julian Assange's arrest in London, England, on April 11, 2019, the U.S. government has been hoping to extradite him back to the U.S. and prosecute him for espionage charges of leaking classified documents. If convicted, Assange would face up to 175 years in prison. On January 4, 2021, the District Court for The District of London in the United Kingdom rejected an extradition request from the United States, citing Assange's health problems.
This time, key witnesses have been sent to give perjury, and the legal basis for the United States to extradite and prosecute Assange will be even weaker. Edward Snowden, the protagonist of the Prism Gate incident, retweeted Stundin's interview on social media and said that "the Assange case is over here."
Snowden retweeted the report on Twitter with the caption: The Assange case ends here.
"Assange never asked him to do that"
One of the key allegations in the indictment by U.S. authorities is that Assange instructed Tordatsen to hack Iceland, including illegally hacking into the computers of Icelandic lawmakers to obtain call logs. And Tordatson now tells Stundin that Assange never asked him to do that, and that he lied himself. In fact, he got some recordings from a third party and wanted to share them with Assange, supposedly a recording of an Icelandic mp's phone call, but he never checked what was inside.
Tordatsen's deception goes far beyond that. Based on his personal chat history with Stundin reporters, it can be seen that he continued to disguise himself as an official WikiLeaks staff member from 2010 to 2011 and make contact with members of other international hacking groups. He exaggerates himself as WikiLeaks' chief of staff, communications chief, or number two person in the organization, and frequently asks hackers to obtain information from Icelandic entities or attack Icelandic websites. These attacks can make the website inaccessible, but do not cause permanent damage.
From these chats, Stundin found no evidence that Tordatsen had been instructed by WikiLeaks internal staff to make those demands on the hackers.
In addition, Tordatsen admitted to reporters that he had established contacts with many journalists, and also did not have the authorization of WikiLeaks. He claimed to be the official representative of WikiLeaks and had those media outlets pay for a lot of travel abroad for themselves. He also stole many files from WikiLeaks staff by copying hard drive files, including those of Assange himself.
Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson, from Stundin's website
"Weaving a Spider's Web that Catches Assange"
When Tordatson began contacting a hacker nicknamed Sabu in the summer of 2011, the FBI saw an opportunity to implicate Assange. According to Stundin, the Sab is a member of the notorious hacking group LulzSec, who was arrested in early June 2011 and became an informant and collaborator with the FBI under threat.
After his arrest, Sabu launched attacks on the websites of several Icelandic government agencies under the authority of the FBI. Subsequently, on June 20, the FBI began contacting Icelandic authorities, warning them that they might be at risk of a serious and imminent hacking attack and offering to help them address this risk. The Icelandic authorities quickly agreed to this "help".
Ögmundur Jónasson, Iceland's minister of the interior at the time and the executive head of the police and prosecutorial services, speculated that the Americans were already laying out their ultimate goals, not to help Iceland, but to frame Assange. "[The Americans] want to take advantage of what's happening [in Iceland], to use the people of our country to weave a web, a spider's web that can catch Julian Assange," he said. ”
It was then that Tordatsen saw a way out for himself, sending an email to the U.S. Embassy in Iceland on Aug. 23 confirming his willingness to be a witness in Assange's case. Tordatson began to become a "star witness" for the FBI. After the suspension of cooperation in Iceland, the Americans took him to Denmark. Still, after months of "exchanges," the FBI seems to have lost interest in him.
Around the same time, the Icelandic authorities made two charges against him, namely mass fraud, forgery and theft, and sexual abuse of underage boys. Tordatsen was sentenced twice in 2013 and 2014. According to a psychiatric report presented to the court, Tordatsen was a sociopath.
"Madness" after obtaining immunity
By the time of the Trump administration in 2019, Tordatson was again valued. According to Stundin, the U.S. Department of Justice deliberately characterized Assange as a "criminal" rather than a "journalist" at the time to avoid domestic discussion that prosecuting Assange would interfere with press freedom. At this point, Tordatsen's testimony is crucial. The Trump administration made him an official witness in the Assange case and gave him immunity from various prosecutions.
However, immunity further indulged Tordatsen's criminal conduct, and he began to buy goods on credit, rent luxury cars, and even order large quantities of wholesale goods in the name of legal entities, and then did not intend to give money. He forged the names of his lawyers and then falsely raised his stake in both companies to more than $800,000. Such reports of theft and fraud are piling up.
It is not known why Tordatson admitted in the interview that he had committed perjury. According to local Icelandic media, the last time people saw Tordatsen was last week, when he wore a mask and used a new company name to order goods, but he was immediately recognized and did not buy anything. He drove away in a white Tesla.
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