BRITAIN: Julian Assange Offers To Surrender To US If Obama Pardons Imprisoned Wikileaker Chelsea Manning

The International Business Times reports:

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is willing to be extradited to the US in exchange for the release of the imprisoned military whistleblower Chelsea Manning, Wikileaks has tweeted on 12 January. “If Obama grants Manning clemency Assange will agree to US extradition despite clear unconstitutionality of DoJ case”, the tweet read.

Wikileaks has made similar pledges in the past, seemingly on behalf of his founder, most recently on 15 September: “If Obama grants Manning clemency, Assange will agree to US prison in exchange – despite its clear unlawfulness”.

In both instances, Wikileaks made the pledge while retweeting a letter to US attorney general Loretta Lynch dated August 2016. In the letter, Assange’s defense counsel requested the attorney to publicly close the investigation into Wikileaks and his founder.

Assange was granted political asylum by Ecuador in 2012 and has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since. He refuses to be extradited to Sweden, where he is accused of rape, because he fears the authorities would then extradite him to the US where he’d be put on trial for releasing confidential US documents.

President Obama is reportedly considering commuting Manning’s sentence, which is why this latest offer comes now.