The family of slain DNC staffer Seth Rich believe his email was targeted by hacker Kim Dotcom in a malicious attempt to link him to the leak of thousands of emails that were provided to WikiLeaks last year.

Rich was shot dead as he walked home from a bar in Washington DC in July. Police say it was an attempted robbery and his killer has never been found.

In recent weeks, his grieving family has passionately fought a growing conspiracy theory that he was murdered for supplying thousands of DNC emails to WikiLeaks ahead of the election.

Kim Dotcom, the businessman-turned hacker, started the theory by tweeting that he knew who was in contact with Rich before his death and knew him to be the source of the leak.

It gained traction when Fox News host Sean Hannity had Dotcom on to his show to back up his claims.

The family of Seth Rich (left), the murdered DNC staffer, say notorious hacker Kim Dotcom (right) tried to hack into his gmail account this week to plant evidence to back up his claim that Seth was behind the DNC leak of thousands of emails

Fox retracted an article on the subject out of respect for the Rich family and other Democrats have slammed those breathing life in to the theory as 'disgusting'.

On Wednesday, The Washington Post published claims by the murdered 27-year-old's family that Dotcom tried to hack into his emails to plant evidence to back up his false claim.

The alleged attempt came by way of a request sent to Rich's gmail account from the email address welcome@mega.nz. Mega is the New Zealand-based cloud storage company that Dotcom used to work for and resigned from in 2013.

Rich's father, who has been monitoring his email account since his death, believes the invitation was an attempt to hack into the account and the family has consulted specialists.

Rich was shot in the back as he made his way home from a bar in July last year while working for the DNC

In a statement, they said; 'We are outraged that certain individuals continue to try to use Seth’s name and memory to advance their political and ideological agendas.

Sean Hannity was caught up in the scandal last week when he invited Dotcom onto his show to discuss his theory

'We hope people will think twice the next time someone makes an outlandish claim to have discovered new evidence in this case.'

Dotcom is standing by his theory and denies the accusation that he planted evidence.

'Several #fakenews stories today saying that I hacked the email accounts of #SethRich,' he wrote in one tweet.

He says the allegation that he tried to hack the gmail account is an attempt to cover up any involvement Rich ha.

Later, he said he was dedicated to 'solving' Rich's murder and has offered to submit material to former FBI Director Robert Mueller who has been assigned as a special prosecutor to investigate Russian interference in the US election and any ties they may have had with the Trump campaign.

The theory reportedly sparked 'complete panic' among senior DNC officials when it emerged last week.

The Rich family is begging for the conspiracy theory to be shut down. Pictured, his father Joel, mother Mary and brother Aaron

No evidence has been presented that Rich was in contact with WikiLeaks before his death.

The hack has been pinned to Russian cyber terrorists who were eager to down Hillary Clinton's chances of winning.

The result of it was a dump of emails, some 53,000, which were published en masse in the weeks before the election.