11 December,2010 07:44 AM IST | | Agencies
A number of WikiLeaks defectors, including founder Julian Assange's former right-hand man, plan to launch a rival site on Monday after accusing Assange of behaving like "some kind of emperor or slave trader".
With WikiLeaks itself vowing to press on with its leaking regardless of the fate of Assange, it seems that any attempts by US politicians to stop the leaks will be futile.
The new site, Openleaks, will launch on Monday, Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported. Like WikiLeaks, it will allow whistleblowers to leak information to the public anonymously.
However, Openleaks won't host the documents itself, instead acting as an intermediary between whistleblowers and other groups including media organisations.
Several WikiLeaks members abandoned the site following perceived autocratic behaviour by Assange. They said he failed to consult them on many decisions and put himself front and centre of everything WikiLeaks did.
Some members were also concerned that the Swedish rape allegations against Assange were damaging the organisation's reputation.
"We broke from WikiLeaks because a few ex-WikiLeaks members have been very unhappy with the way Assange was conducting things," said former WikiLeaks member and key player in the new site, Herbert Snorrason.
The most high-profile defector is Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who went by the name Daniel Schmitt at WikiLeaks and served as one of its only public faces aside from Assange.
Domscheit-Berg resigned from the organisation this year after WikiLeaks released almost 4,00,000 classified US documents relating to the Iraq war.
He, and other WikiLeaks members, felt Assange released the documents too early without taking the time to properly redact names of US collaborators and informants in Iraq.
"You are not anyone's king or god," Domscheit-Berg told Assange in an online chat.
Did you know?
Julian Assange has been selected as a nominee of World's Most Influential Man by Time magazine
