On Wednesday, President Joe Biden said he was “considering” Australia’s request for an end to US harassment. WikiLeaks the founder Julian Assange.
“We’re looking into it,” Biden said in response to a shouted question from a reporter during a White House meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
Assange has been indicted on 17 counts of espionage and computer misuse over Wikileaks’ publication of classified US documents. American prosecutors said he put his life on the line while helping US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning illegally obtain diplomatic cables and military documents published by WikiLeaks.
Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking classified information to WikiLeaks. but then-President Barack Obama he commuted his sentence after seven years. He was later arrested for refusing to cooperate grand jury examination of documents.
Assange, an Australian citizen, has been fighting US extradition efforts from a UK prison for more than a decade. He spent seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and the last five years in the high-security Belmarsh prison on the outskirts of the British capital.
London High Court last month Assanja granted a temporary reprieve from extradition extradited to the United States on espionage charges, allowing him to take his objection to a new hearing.
Associated Press contributed.