Assange’s fury at ‘autobiography’

Julian Assange has complained he will have to buy a copy of his own newly published autobiography to find out its contents after he failed to block its release.

The WikiLeaks founder tried to cancel his contract for the memoir after reading a first draft, but the publishers, Edinburgh-based Canongate Books, went ahead with its publication yesterday against his wishes.

In the book, Assange, 40, suggests that rape allegations against him could have been concocted by the US government and says he knew that “forces” would eventually trap him.

He dismisses claims that he sexually assaulted two women in Sweden in August last year, writing: “I may be a chauvinist pig of some sort but I am no rapist.” Assange condemned Canongate’s publication of the book, billed on the cover as an “unauthorised autobiography”, describing it as a case of “screwing people over to make a buck”.

He said the published memoir was a “work in progress” written by his Scottish ghost-writer, Andrew O’Hagan, based on interviews and stressed it was “entirely uncorrected or fact-checked by me”.

In a strongly worded statement, he added: “I will have to buy ‘my autobiography’ in order to learn the extent of the errors and inaccuracies of the content of the book, but the damage is done.”

Canongate issued a statement in which it accused Assange of offering a “distorted version of events”, adding: “We believe in the book and maintain we were right to publish it.”

Assange, an Australian former computer hacker currently on bail in Britain as he fights extradition to Sweden on the sexual assault charges, made headlines with revelations from secret US military files and diplomatic cables released by his whistle-blowing website, WikiLeaks.