Official: Julian Assange to be Granted Asylum

Embattled WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be granted asylum to Ecuador, according to a recent report.

An Ecuadorian official who has been described as “familiar with government discussions” told The Guardian that Ecuador’s government will approve Assange’s request for asylum. It remains unknown, however, if he will be allowed a path to reach Ecuador from the country’s embassy in London, where he’s been living since mid-June.

Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, previously said that he would announce his decision about Assange’s asylum request before Friday. Correa appeared as a guest on Assange’s television show, World Tomorrow, in May.

Government sources also told The Guardian that Ecuador’s offer of asylum was extended to Assange months ago, before he sought safe harbor at the Ecuadorian embassy.

Assange is facing extradition from the United Kingdom to Sweden, where he’s wanted by prosecutors to answer questions regarding allegations of sexual misconduct. Assange believes the charges against him have been trumped up as part of a United States-backed plan to get him to a U.S. court to face still-unannounced charges related to WikiLeaks’ release of classified American diplomatic cables.

WikiLeaks only recently came back online after a more than week of being knocked offline by cyberattacks.

UPDATE: According to BNO News, Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry has not yet made a decision about Assange:

Ecuador Foreign Ministry says it has not yet made a decision regarding Assange asylum request.

— BNO News (@BNONews) August 14, 2012

UPDATE: Correa himself has rebuked the story via Twitter:

Rumor de asilo a Assange es falso. Todavía no hay ninguna decisión al respecto. Espero informe de Cancillería.

— Rafael Correa (@MashiRafael) August 14, 2012

UPDATE: Correction: Assange is wanted by Swedish authorities to answer questions about allegations of sexual assault, not necessarily to stand trial for them. Mashable regrets the error.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, EdStock2

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Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/08/14/assange-asylum/

Official: Julian Assange to be Granted Asylum

Julian Assange, US & World, WikiLeaks, world

Bradley Manning"s Lawyers Ask Judge to Drop "Aiding the Enemy" Charge

Bradley Manning‘s lawyers want the military judge presiding in his case to drop several charges that the United States government has levied against him, including the most serious one: that he “aided the enemy.”

On Monday, the first day of the defense phase of the trial, Manning’s lawyer, David E. Coombs, filed four motions with the military court convened in Fort Meade, Md. Coombs asked Judge Col. Denise Lind to drop a series of charges, arguing that the prosecutors failed to provide enough evidence to support them.

In addition to the “aiding the enemy” charge, which could lead to a life sentence, Coombs asked the judge to drop the charge based on the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), which alleges Manning exceeded his authorized access to military networks and transmitted the documents to WikiLeaks, knowing it would benefit U.S. enemies.

Last week, the prosecutors failed to provide a key document that would have proven that Manning violated the computer security agreement he signed when he was deployed in Iraq, opening the door for Coombs’ motion.

The judge asked the government to respond to the motions by Thursday. She will rule on them in the following days.

During the pre-trial phase of Manning’s court martial, the soldier pleaded guilty to 10 of the 22 charges facing him.

The defense opened Monday’s session with a bang, airing the Collateral Murder video — perhaps WikiLeaks’ most famous release — provided by the soldier in 2010. The video depicts gunfire from an Apache helicopter aimed at a group of men in the streets of Baghdad, including two Reuters journalists, who were both killed.

Coombs also called witnesses to the stand on Monday, including Chief Warrant Officer Joshua Ehresman, who worked with Manning in Iraq. Ehresman testified that at the time, soldiers were allowed to download documents and files — including classified ones — from military computers into their own CDs or thumb drives. His testimony could help Coombs argue that Manning didn’t violate any rules when he siphoned the classified documents that turned into the Iraq and Afghanistan War Logs, the Cablegate dump and the Guantanamo files.

On Monday afternoon, as reported by The Guardian, the court heard the testimony of Lauren McNamara, a transgender woman who met Manning online in 2009. “We were just a couple of people talking about our lives, and he shared his various experiences and interests,” said McNamara, who then identified as a man named Zachary Antolak.

McNamara shared portions of her chat logs with Manning, painting the soldier as a smart, conscious individual interested in global affairs and politics — and saw his job as trying to save lives of people abroad, both soldiers and civilians.

The defense, as we explained at the beginning of the trial, is not supposed to use Manning’s motives in his defense. Citing his chats with McNamanra, Coombs is trying to explain Manning’s state of mind and his thoughts at the time of the leaks, arguing that they are relevant to proving he did not intend to harm national security when leaking documents to Julian Assange‘s organization.

Image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Read more: http://mashable.com/2013/07/09/bradley-mannings-lawyers-ask-judge-to-drop-aiding-the-enemy-charge/

Bradley Manning"s Lawyers Ask Judge to Drop "Aiding the Enemy" Charge

Chelsea Manning, U.S., US & World, whistleblower, WikiLeaks, world