Update: Despite earlier remarks from both Shamir and Wikileaks spokespeople in the Swedish media, now both Shamir and Wikileaks disclaim any formal association between Shamir and WL. (“Israel Shamir is NOR a member, NEITHER an employee of Wikileaks: he is a free lance writer accredited with Wikileaks.”)
A Swedish-domiciled Russian guy who calls himself “Israel Shamir,” apparently serves as the official Wikileaks “content aggregator” for Russia (see update, above) — he’s also apparently a Holocaust-denying creepy nutjob who told a journalist that Auschwitz was merely an internment camp, Jews are a “virus in human form,” the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are real and “it’s every Muslim and Christian’s duty to deny the Holocaust” (according to his own site).
What’s more, he’s the author of the article that asserted that one of Assange’s rape-accusers was working for the CIA.
According to reports in the Swedish and Russian media, the broad strokes of which have been confirmed by a WikiLeaks spokesman, Shamir serves as the group’s content aggregator in Russia, the man who “selects and distributes” the cables to Russian news organizations, according to an investigation by Swedish public radio. In the newspaper Expressen, Magnus Ljunggren, an emeritus professor of Russian literature at Gothenburg University, outlined Shamir’s close ties to WikiLeaks and his position “spreading the documents in Russia.” (The article is illustrated with a picture of Assange and Shamir in an unidentified office.)
(Thanks, James, via Submitterator)