In this file photo taken on May 1, 2019, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gestures from the window of a prison van as he is driven out of Southwark Crown Court in London, after having been sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for breaching his bail conditions in 2012. (DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS / AFP)

LONDON - US President Donald Trump offered to pardon Julian Assange if the WikiLeaks founder provided the source for the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails before the 2016 US presidential election, a London court was told on Friday.

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Assange’s lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, said she observed a meeting where former Republican US Representative Dana Rohrabacher and Charles Johnson, an associate known to have close ties to the Trump campaign, made the offer.

“The proposal put forward by Congressman Rohrabacher was that Mr Assange identify the source for the 2016 election publications in return for some form of pardon,” Robinson said in a witness statement given to the court.

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Australian-born Assange, 49, is fighting to stop being sent to the United States, where he is charged with conspiring to hack government computers and violating an espionage law over the release of confidential cables by WikiLeaks in 2010-2011.