Washington–WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange denied Friday that he or his whistleblower website had encouraged US Army Private Bradley Manning to pass on masses of secret US documents.
"I had never heard of the name Bradley Manning before it was published in the press," Assange said in an interview with ABC's Good Morning America.
"WikiLeaks technology (was) designed from the very beginning to make sure that we never know the identities or names of people submitting us material," he said.
His comments came amid reports that US prosecutors were trying to build a case against the 39-year-old Australian on grounds he encouraged Manning, who is in US military custody, to steal US secrets from a government computer.
Assange is free on bail in Britain while he fights extradition to Sweden where he is wanted for questioning for the alleged rape and molestation of two Swedish women.
He said he was "the victim of a smear campaign," and that Swedish authorities had yet to provide "a single piece of evidence to back up its allegations."
"We're not just talking about evidence, in terms of physical objects. We're talking, not even a single word of the allegations themselves," he said.
