No swap as Assange retreats from extradition pledge

Argues that what he was really asking for was ‘immediate pardon’ for Chelsea Manning.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who only last week raised eyebrows across the internet when he said he would accept extradition to the United States if former private Chelsea Manning was granted clemency, did a volte-face saying what he meant was ‘immediate pardon’ for the ex-army analyst.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange retreated from his pledge to accept extradition to the United States if Chelsea Manning was granted clemency, arguing via his lawyers that what he was really asking for was an immediate pardon for the ex-Army analyst.

It was only last week that Mr. Assange raised eyebrows across the internet when he appeared to offer himself up as a kind of swap for Ms. Manning, the former private convicted of leaking the hundreds of thousands of documents that made WikiLeaks a household name.

“If Obama grants Manning clemency Assange will agree to U.S. extradition despite clear unconstitutionality of DoJ case,” WikiLeaks said, apparently referring to the U.S. Department of Justice’s continuing investigation into the radical transparency website.

But when Mr. Obama granted clemency to Ms. Manning on Tuesday, setting a May release date that lops almost 30 years off her sentence, Mr. Assange’s lawyers said it wasn’t enough.

Now, he says it is not enough

“There’s no question that what President Obama did is not what Assange was seeking,” said Barry Pollack, who represents the WikiLeaks chief in the United States, on Wednesday. “Mr. Assange was saying that Chelsea should never have been prosecuted, never have been sentenced to decades in prison, and should have been released immediately.”

Melinda Taylor, who also represents Mr. Assange, agreed, saying in an email that the clemency was “far short of what Mr. Assange asked for and what Ms. Manning deserved [which is to be pardoned and freed immediately].”

“Why would he be called for Manning’s release in a few months from now?” Mr. Pollack said. “You can parse his tweets any way that you want to parse them. I think his position has been clear throughout.”

Critics brand him as dishonest

Critics of Mr. Assange had a field day, accusing him of dishonesty or using Ms. Manning’s case to win publicity. “Julian Assange Backpedals on Extradition Promise in Record Time,” read one headline in tech website ‘Gizmodo.’

It’s not the first time that Mr. Assange’s pronouncements in relation to Ms. Manning haven’t quite worked out as advertised.

In December 2010, journalists revealed that WikiLeaks had failed to honour a pledge to help support the ex-Army analyst’s legal defence fund.

It was only after the story was aired in the media that WikiLeaks paid up, reducing its expected contribution from $50,000 to $20,000 and then finally to $15,100, according to press accounts at the time.

Even earlier, in June 2010, WikiLeaks said that claims “that we have been sent 2,60,000 classified U.S. embassy cables are, as far as we can tell, incorrect.”

Four months later, the site began publishing Ms. Manning’s huge trove.