Former WikiLeaks spokesman admits shredding 3,500 unpublished documents

A former spokesman for the WikiLeaks whistle-blowing organisation has said that he destroyed thousands of unpublished documents.

Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who famously fell out with the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, and went on to paint an unflattering portrait of him in a book released earlier this year, said he had shredded more than 3,500 unpublished files.

According to Germany's Der Spiegel yesterday, the documents were stored on the WikiLeaks server until late summer 2010, when Mr Domscheit-Berg left the organisation and took the files in question with him. Mr Domscheit-Berg told the newspaper the documents were destroyed to protect the organisation's sources. The lost information included the US government's "no-fly" list.