Julian
Assange's associate cyber security expert mysteriously missing in
Norway
RT,
2
September, 2018
Police
in Norway are looking into the disappearance of Arjien Kamphuis, a
Dutch citizen with links to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Versions on Twitter have ranged from a hiking incident, to a secret
assignment, to a CIA hit.
Kamphuis,
a cyber security expert and co-author of a handbook for investigative
journalists on how to keep themselves and their work safe from
government spying, has been missing since August 20th, when he
checked out of a hotel in the town of Bodø in northern Norway.
The
disappearance was first reported on Twitter by Ancilla Van De Leest,
former Dutch Pirate Party frontrunner and privacy activist on Friday.
She wrote that Kamphuis was going to board a train from Bodø to
Trondheim, which usually takes 10 hours.
On
August 22, Kamphuis was expected to leave Trondheim for Amsterdam. De
Leest said he had already bought the plane ticket but nobody has
heard from him since he left the hotel in Bodø. That means the man
might have gone missing either in Bodø, in Trondheim, or somewhere
in between during the train journey.
The
WikiLeaks Twitter account posted an update on Kamphuis' strange
disappearance on Saturday
.
Norwegian
police on Sunday confirmed that they have opened a probe into the
47-year-old Dutchman's disappearance, saying that at the moment they
are in the dark about events that could have preceded it.
In
the missing persons report disseminated on social media, Kamphuis is
decribed as an "avid hiker," which prompted some
commentators to suggest that the Assange associate might have gotten
lost while hiking in the mountainous terrain.
Many
others have assumed foul play, considering Kamphuis' connection to
WikiLeaks.
One
user has floated the idea that Kamphuis might have been put on a
"classified assignment" by WikiLeaks and had to go
undercover, cutting all communication with the world at large.
Some
Wikileaks supporters have suggested the man might have been snatched
or even killed in a covert CIA operation. However remote the chances
of it being true, the need to even consider such an option has some
people worried
"Captured
or killed by agents of the five eyes alliance?" another
user wondered, referring to the intelligence-sharing alliance of
Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US
Some
argued that Kamphuis' disappearance was intended as a warning to
Assange.
Unconfirmed
sightings of the missing man were reported in
Ribe, Denmark, on both August 28th and 29th.
In
2014, Kamphuis co-authored 'Information
Security for Journalists.' The handbook, which Kamphuis said would be
forever free to download, provides aspiring investigative journalists
and media professionals with a thorough guide on how to avoid being
snooped on by the state.
"To
ensure your privacy and the safety of your sources, Information
Security for Journalists will help you to make your communications
indecipherable, untraceable and anonymous," the book's
description states.
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