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Julian Assange accused of conspiring with Anonymous and LulzSec in superseding US indictment

The new indictment broadens the U.S. government's case against the WikiLeaks founder to include more hacking allegations.
Julian Assange
Julian Assange at New Media Days 09 in Copenhagen. (New Media Days / Flickr / CC 2.0)

The U.S. government has broadened its criminal case against Julian Assange in an indictment unsealed Wednesday that accuses the WikiLeaks founder of collaborating with hackers affiliated with the Anonymous and LulzSec hacking groups.

The new superseding indictment alleges that in 2012 Assange provided LulzSec’s leader, who was an FBI informant at the time, with a list of target organizations to hack including a private U.S. intelligence contractor.

The indictment includes the same charges that U.S. prosecutors brought against Assange in an 18-count indictment in May 2019. Assange was charged under the Espionage Act for his role in allegedly publishing classified Department of Defense documents in 2010, which he obtained from Army Intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.

Assange is currently detained in the United Kingdom under a U.S. extradition request.

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You can read the full superseding indictment below.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6956485-06-24-20-Returned-Redacted-Foreperson-Name-0.html

Sean Lyngaas

Written by Sean Lyngaas

Sean Lyngaas is CyberScoop’s Senior Reporter covering the Department of Homeland Security and Congress. He was previously a freelance journalist in West Africa, where he covered everything from a presidential election in Ghana to military mutinies in Ivory Coast for The New York Times. Lyngaas’ reporting also has appeared in The Washington Post, The Economist and the BBC, among other outlets. His investigation of cybersecurity issues in the nuclear sector, backed by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, won plaudits from industrial security experts. He was previously a reporter with Federal Computer Week and, before that, with Smart Grid Today. Sean earned a B.A. in public policy from Duke University and an M.A. in International Relations from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

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