CANBERRA: Hillary Clinton has told an Australian state broadcaster that WlkiLeaks founder Julian Assange was a tool of Russian intelligence in his release of hacked emails that hurt the US Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign.

Clinton told Australian Broadcasting Corp. in an interview broadcast on Monday that the Australian whistleblower had “become a kind of nihilistic opportunist who does the bidding of a dictator”, Russian President Vladimir Putin.

She said: “He’s a tool of Russian intelligence, and if he’s such a ... martyr of free speech, why doesn’t WikiLeaks ever publish anything coming out of Russia?”

Clinton was complaining about WikiLeaks’ publication during the 2016 election campaign of politically damaging emails from the Democratic National Committee.

Assange tweeted that she was “not a credible person”.

Published in Dawn, October 17th, 2017