Some of the incidents mentioned in secret American files released by Wikileaks on Monday constituted a prima facie case for war crimes, said its founder Julian Assange at a press conference here.
Mr. Assange said that while, finally, it was for a court to take a view there were a number of incidents that appeared to form a basis for a war crimes trial.
“It is up to a court to decide, clearly, whether something is, in the end, a crime. That said, prima facie, there does appear to be evidence of war crimes in this material,” he told reporters.
Mr. Assange specifically cited an attack by a secret U.S. special forces unit in June 2007 on a compound where a senior Al-Qaeda leader, Abu-Laith al-Libi, was suspected to be hiding. Seven children were killed in the attack. He said the NATO security forces acknowledged the deaths of the children but did not mention that the attack was unprovoked and that they started firing rockets before any shots were fired at them.
Mr. Assange said he had no reason to doubt the authenticity of the leaked documents.
He questioned claims that the publication of the documents would put lives of NATO soldiers in danger.
“All the material is over seven months old [and] so is of no current operational consequence, even though it may be of very significant investigative consequence,” he said emphasising that Wikileaks had “tried hard to make sure that this material does not put innocents at harm”.
