The police of Norway and the Netherlands have started formal investigations on the place where the Dutch 20, a Dutch cybersecurity expert and senior partner of WikiLeaks, has disappeared without leaving any trace.
Arjen Kamphuis, a 47-year-old online privacy expert, is best known for his book "Security for Journalists," which advises investigative journalists working on national security and intelligence matters. Kamphuis, who has Dutch citizenship, is a close associate of Julian Assange, founder of the international website WikiLeaks.
According to reports, Kamphuis was last seen in Bodo, a city of 50.000 inhabitants located in the Arctic region of Norway. Witnesses say that on August 20 Kamphuis checked out of his hotel in downtown Bodo and walked to the city's main train station, where he took a train to Trondheim, Norway's third largest city. From there he had planned to go to Amsterdam on 22 August.
It is not known, however, whether Kamphuis ever boarded the train to Trondheim. He certainly hasn't boarded his flight to Amsterdam and hasn't heard from him since leaving the Bodo hotel on August 20. The French news agency France Media Agency quoted Norwegian police spokesman Tommy Bech, who said Norwegian authorities were unaware of where Kamphuis might be. The same refused to comment on the incident, stating only that the Norwegian police opened a formal investigation into his disappearance, in collaboration with the police in the Netherlands.
The disappearance of the Dutch cybersecurity expert comes as the fate of his close associate and founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, appears increasingly uncertain. Assange, born in Australia, has been living in prison for six years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
During that time, the Ecuadorian government offered Assange protection against allegations of rape and sexual assault filed against him in Sweden, which Assange dismisses as a political conspiracy against him. Last summer, however, Ecuador's new president, Lenin Moreno, said that, soon, Assange would have to leave the embassy. Assange is also wanted in the United States for leaking classified government documents through the WikiLeaks platform.