Crisis in Tahrir

Ellsberg: US wants deal for Manning to implicate Assange

| 22 December 2011 | Comments (1)

Bradley Manning

Fort Meade, Maryland (dpa) – Activist Dan Ellsberg, who leaked thousands of secret documents on the Vietnam War in the 1970s, on Thursday denounced that the case against US Army soldier Bradley Manning.

Ellsberg alleged that the prosecution is seeking to force Manning to implicate Julian Assange, founder of whistleblower website WikiLeaks.

“What the defense lawyer today suggested is to get a plea bargain that would incriminate Assange,” Ellsberg told reporters outside Fort Meade, Maryland, where a preliminary hearing in the Manning case stretched into a seventh day.

Ellsberg was accompanied by Julia Robinson, a lawyer who works with Assange.

Jeff Paterson, founder of a platform to support Manning, considered it obvious that it was the young soldier who leaked classified US defense and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks. But, he stressed, “he received no benefit from this.”

“His only intention seems to be for the greater good of our democracy, to make better decisions as a public,” Paterson said. dpa

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  • Anonymous

    Ellsberg is wrong. Manning is currently being prosecuted by the US military and the Justice Department has yet to get involved.