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Assange denounces Saudi media for publishing ‘absurd fabrications’

August 22, 2017 at 3:53 pm

Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks [FlickR]

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has denounced Al-Arabiya and other Saudi-owned media for publishing “absurd fabrications”. Assange criticised the Saudi state-run newspaper following its publication of an article which alleged that he made an agreement with the Qataris over sensitive information involving rulers in Doha in return for “huge sums of money”.

Responding on Twitter, Assange accused the Al-Arabiya network — which has its headquarters in the UAE despite being Saudi-owned — of “publishing increasingly absurd fabrications.”

The article in question made claims about Qatar’s role in a number of scandals. It described an alleged Qatari conspiracy to undermine Bahrain; Abu Dhabi’s financial support for terrorists; alleged secret relations with Israel and a mutual agreement with WikiLeaks to block the publication of cables about Qatari support for three terrorists wanted by the US.

Sawsan Al-Shaer is a Bahraini writer and journalist who made the allegation against Qatar by citing comments made by Assange. “WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said he has seven cables about Qatar,” she said. “Only five were published while the other two were not after Qatar negotiated with the website’s administrator, who requested huge sums of money in order to publish them as they contained dangerous information about meetings with Israeli and American officials and incited against Egypt and its people”.

Read: Arab rift with Qatar

While Assange denied ever making the comments ascribed to him, Al-Arabiya English responded to the WikiLeaks founder’s accusation about “absurd fabrications”. In its defence, Al-Arabiya distanced itself from the article, saying that it was an opinion piece that originally appeared in Arabic in a separate Arabic-language newspaper.