The report begins: "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 defence lawyer today suggested is to get a plea bargain that would incriminate Assange,' Ellsberg told reporters outside Fort Meade, Maryland ..."



Daniel Ellsberg, 10/04/11. (photo: Genaro Molina /LAT)

Ellsberg: US Wants Deal for Manning to Implicate Assange

By Deutsche Presse-Agentur

ctivist 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 defence 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 streatched 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 defence 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.