FS, the person I'm thinking of escaped hours ahead of the police, because his handlers were tipped off immediately about the wikileaks dump. As he's still in hiding that's all I'll say.
But let's look at the real "advatnage" of some of the wikileaks in, say, Kenya. You say it's caused this great good by showing the human rights violations there. Well, why exactly? So that people could agitate and their governments would do stuff about it, yeah? Well guess what? Your government already knew the stuff and was trying to do stuff about it, only to have their networks completely disrupted by wikileaks. So here is the actual cost/benefit analysis:
Con: the people on the ground in Kenya trying to help Kenyans were arrested, killed, or had to flee.
Pro: hipsters in America could have their curiosity sated and feel good about going around trying to spur action.
This doesn't seem very close to an even break to me.
Now in fairness, some of the information from Kenya was novel to wikileaks (i.e., provided directly to them by human rights workers, for publication). That stuff? Sure. But the lack of any discretion underscores their irresponsibility. In particular, it makes me completely fine with any legal persecution they face, because as I see it, it's wholly justified, both legally and morally.