BRAZILIAN President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva’s call for freedom for Julian Assange shows a rising “international clamour” for Britain to release the jailed journalist, campaigners say.

The socialist president spoke out in London during a trip to attend the coronation.

“It is an embarrassment that a journalist who denounced trickery by one state against another is arrested, condemned to die in jail and we do nothing to free him. It’s a crazy thing,” Lula told reporters after the ceremony.