Police in Norway and Holland have opened formal investigations into the whereabouts of a Dutch cybersecurity expert and senior associate of WikiLeaks, who disappeared without trace on August 20. Arjen Kamphuis, a 47-year-old online privacy specialist, is known for his book Information Security for Journalists, which offers advice on investigative reporters working on national security and intelligence matters. Additionally, Kamphuis, who has Dutch citizenship, is a close associate of Julian Assange, founder of the international whistleblower website WikiLeaks.
According to reports, Kamphuis was last seen in Bodo, a town of 50,000 people located in Norway’s arctic region. Witnesses say that on August 20, Kamphuis checked out of his hotel in the center of Bodo and headed on foot to the town’s main railway station, where he planned to catch a train to Trondheim, Norway’s third largest city. From there he was scheduled to fly to the Dutch capital Amsterdam on August 22. However, it is not known whether Kamphuis ever boarded the 10-hour, 500-mile train ride to Trondheim. He certainly did not board his flight to Amsterdam and has not been heard from since he left his Bodo hotel on August 20. The French news agency Agence France Presse cited Norwegian police spokesman Tommy Bech, who said that Norwegian authorities were unaware of Kamphuis’s current whereabouts. He refused to speculate about what may have happened to Kamphuis after he left his hotel in Bodo, but said that the Norwegian police had opened a formal investigation into his disappearance, in association with police in Holland.
The Dutch cybersecurity expert’s disappearance comes as the fate of his close associate and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appears increasingly uncertain. The Australian-born Assange has been living in self-confinement inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London for six years. During that time, the Ecuadorian government has offered Assange protection against charges of rape and sexual assault that have been filed against him in Sweden, which the WikiLeaks founder dismisses as a political conspiracy against him. This past summer, however, Ecuador’s new President, Lenin Moreno, said that Assange would need to leave his embassy quarters soon. Assange is also wanted in the United States for leaking classified government documents through the WikiLeaks platform.