There are reports that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is
willing to face extradition to the United States. WikiLeaks has published
classified information stolen from the US government on numerous occasions, but
there is currently no indictment against the group’s Australian founder.
On Jan. 12, WikiLeaks
tweeted that “If Obama grants Manning clemency Assange will agree to US
extradition despite clear unconstitutionality of DoJ case.” Yesterday,
President Obama announced that he would commute the sentence of Bradley
“Chelsea” Manning, the US Army soldier convicted of stealing 750,000 pages
of army documents and videos and giving them to WikiLeaks.
Among the documents
that PFC Manning gave to WikiLeaks were incident reports from the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan that mentioned the names of civilians working with
coalition military forces. WikiLeaks published these documents without
redacting the names. The Taliban subsequently announced that it was using the
WikiLeaks documents to track down Afghans aiding the US military. “If they are
US spies, then we know how to punish them,” said Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban
spokesman quoted in The
Telegraph.
A second tweet on
Jan. 17 said, “Assange lawyer @themtchair on Assange-Manning extradition
'deal': ‘Everything that he has said he's standing by.’” It is not clear if
Assange considers Obama’s commutation of Manning’s sentence, which fell short
of a full pardon, to be sufficient to trigger his promise to surrender to
authorities.
Assange has been protected from extradition by his residence
in the Ecuadorean embassy in London since 2012, but it isn’t the US that has
been trying to bring him to justice. Sweden has been seeking Assange’s
extradition so that he can stand trial on charges of the rape
and sexual assault of two women in 2010. Assange could also face charges in
Britain for violating bail.
Even though there is no formal indictment of Assange in the
US, the WikiLeaks founder has maintained that he was fearful of extradition to
the US if he left the Ecuadorean embassy. WikiLeaks tweeted a link
that purports to show documents indicating that there are current “pending
proceedings” against Assange by the US Department of Justice.
An additional tweet on
Jan. 17 said, “Assange is confident of winning any fair trial in the US.
Obama's DoJ prevented public interest defense & fair jury.”
Originally published
on The Resurgent
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