Why does Lopez Obrador want to give political asylum to Julian Assange?

Andrés Manuel López Obrador commented on his morning conference on the possibility of offering political asylum to Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks.

MEXICO CITY (A.P./Bloomberg) – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador welcomed a British judge’s rejection of the U.S. extradition request for Julian Assange, calling it “a triumph of justice”.

AMLO positioned himself in favor of a pardon from the United States for the activist accused in that country of espionage. He affirmed that Assange is a journalist and that he “deserves a chance.”

Due to this, López Obrador announced that he would ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) to make the corresponding procedures to request from the United Kingdom government the possibility of freedom for Assange and the offer of political asylum by Mexico for the activist.

“It was a very good decision (by the judge). So, pardon Mr. Assange, pardon and asylum in Mexico. We are giving him protection. We are going to make that move,“(SIC) – he said in his morning conference.

In June of last year, the U.S. pointed out Wikileaks’ founder for conspiring with hackers affiliated with the groups Anonymous and LulzSec, who have been linked to cyberattacks around the world.

Assange is currently in custody in the U.K. The United States has accused him of endangering national security by conspiring to obtain and divulge classified information.

Assange is also accused of conspiring with Chelsea Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst, of obtaining classified documents from databases with nearly 90,000 reports on the war in Afghanistan, 400,000 on the war in Iraq, and 250,000 State Department communications.