Assange autobiography out on Thursday

The autobiography of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is to be released on Thursday despite efforts by the Australian anti-secrecy campaigner to suppress the book, its British publisher said. The book -- "Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography" -- reportedly includes his first direct comments on allegations of rape in Sweden that led to the former computer hacker fighting an extradition battle in Britain. Publisher Canongate said Wednesday it was the first draft of Assange's autobiography as delivered to them in March 2011, and that they were going ahead with publication despite Assange's attempts to prevent them. "On 7 June 2011, with 38 publishing houses around the world committed to releasing the book, Julian told us he wanted to cancel his contract," said Canongate, a small Scottish publishing firm that beat larger rivals to sign the original deal. "However, he had already signed his advance over to his lawyers to settle his legal bills. We have decided to honour that contract and to publish. "Once the advance has been earned out, we will continue to honour the contract and pay Julian royalties." There was no immediate comment from Assange or from WikiLeaks. The publisher said Assange had spent more than 50 hours sitting for interviews for the book at a friend's country house in eastern England where he is staying under strict bail conditions. "Julian became increasingly troubled by the thought of publishing an autobiography. After reading the first draft of the book that was delivered at the end of March, Julian declared, ‘All memoir is prostitution’," it said. "We disagree with Julian’s assessment of the book. We believe it explains both the man and his work, underlining his commitment to the truth. "Julian always claimed the book was well written; we agree, and this also encouraged us to make the book available to readers." Extracts from the book will be serialised from Thursday in British newspaper The Independent, Canongate said. The Independent said on its website that an entire chapter was dedicated to explaining his side of the allegations against him in Sweden, his first full account of the events in which he is accused of sexually assaulting two women. "I have kept my own counsel about the matter until now," it quotes him as saying in the book. "It will be difficult to keep anger out of this account, owing to the sheer level of malice and opportunism that have driven the case against me, but I want to make this argument as much as possible in a spirit of understanding." Assange said he had been warned by a source in an unnnamed intelligence agency that the US government had been planning to set him up -- while he says the women were also angered that he had not returned their phone calls because he was busy. "I wasn’t a reliable boyfriend, or even a very courteous sleeping partner, and this began to figure. Unless, of course, the agenda had been rigged from the start." The book also features diatribes against Britain's The Guardian an the New York Times, the former partners of WikiLeaks in its release of thousands of US diplomatic cables before the site fell out with the two newspapers.