Julian Assange ‘to hand himself in and accept extradition to the US’ after Barack Obama commutes Chelsea Manning sentence

January 20, 2017 in News by RBN Staff

Independent

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Julian Assange is going to face extradition to the US and finally leave the Ecuadorian embassy, Wikileaks has indicated.

Update: since this story was posted, Mr Assange’s lawyer has suggested that the clemency granted to Chelsea Manning is unsatisfactory and he will not accept extradition. An updated story can be found here.

Mr Assange promised last week that, if Barack Obama granted clemency to Chelsea Manning, he would hand himself in and go to the US to face a court case. The outgoing US president used his final hours to free the former soldier, who was jailed for handing over classified documents to Wikileaks.

Wikileaks had tweeted last week: “If Obama grants Manning clemency Assange will agree to US extradition despite clear unconstitutionality of DoJ (Department of Justice) case.” At that time such a pardon was thought unlikely, but the Obama administration announced last night that it would let Ms Manning go free nearly 30 years early.

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