"The story about David Cameron. That is an essential story to Britain. Did the Guardian newspaper go with the story about its own prime minister? No, it didn’t. WikiLeaks broke that story about David Cameron," Assange stated.
In April, Germany’s Suddeutsche Zeitung published materials it claimed came from the Panamanian firm Mossack Fonseca, exposing alleged involvement of a number of world leaders and their circles in tax havens schemes. Some individuals, including musician Sergei Roldugin, who had been reportedly close to President Putin, were mentioned in the report.
Putin has said the musician used his own money to promote Russian culture abroad, as well as acquiring expensive musical instruments abroad.
At the same time, the Panama Papers implicated Cameron’s late father in using the Mossack Fonseca’s services to avoid paying taxes.
Cameron was later revealed to have received a tax-free inheritance from his father and given gifts by his mother in possible avoidance of inheritance taxes.
Assange argued that it is "perfectly acceptable" for the former Soviet states to publish articles about Putin since he is "the strong man in the region."
"[For] Western papers… it is the easiest thing in the world to bash Putin," Assange said. "But to start investigating and hammering your own prime minister, that takes a bit of courage."
The whistleblower has also added that criticizing alleged corruption in Russia was "boring," because many media outlets do so.
Assange noted there are "a lot of problems" with the Panama Papers, which he characterized as "the smallest leaks in history" with some 200 new documents published.
"That is no model [for leaks]. It is not the WikiLeaks model. In fact, it is the anti-WikiLeaks model," he said.
Mossack Fonseca has refused to validate the information contained in the leaks although it has accused reporters of gaining unauthorized access to its proprietary documents.
