September 14, 2010: Article Links Assange Accuser to CIA

The left-leaning periodical Counterpunch publishes an article by Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett saying that Anna Ardin, a woman who has made sexual assault allegations against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (see August 20, 2010), is indirectly linked to the CIA. Towards the end of a long article with a tone of contempt for the allegations against Assange, Shamir and Bennett comment that Ardin is a politcal opponent of former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and has published articles attacking the Cuban communist regime. The publisher of Ardin’s articles is apparently linked to the Union Liberal Cubana, run by the CIA-connected Carlos Alberto Montaner. Ardin has also visited—and been deported from—Cuba, where she interacted with the feminist anti-Castro Las Damas de Blanco organization, which receives funds from the US government and is linked to the convicted anti-communist terrorist Luis Posada. [CounterPunch, 9/14/2010] The allegations will later receive much attention on the Internet and be picked up by Internet news publication Raw Story. [Raw Story, 12/6/2010]