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‘Julian
Assange is free’: Wikileaks founder to be freed in deal with US
Assange
to plead guilty to one charge of espionage and return home to Australia after
decades fighting US extradition.
‘Julian Assange is free’: Wikileaks
founder to be freed in deal with US | Julian Assange News | Al Jazeera
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange boards a plane at a location given as London,
UK, in this still image from video released JUNE 25, 2024 ["@wikileaks"
via X/Handout via Reuters]
Published
On 25 Jun 202425 Jun 2024
WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange has been freed from prison in the United Kingdom and is
set to travel home to Australia after he pleads guilty to a single charge of
breaching the espionage law in the United States.
Assange,
52, will plead guilty to one count of conspiring to obtain and disclose
classified US national defence documents, according to a filing in the US
District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.
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‘Bring Julian
home’: the Australian campaign to free Assange
end of list
He was
freed from the UK’s high-security Belmarsh prison on Monday and taken to the
airport whre he flew out of the country. Assange will appear at a court in
Saipan, a US Pacific territory at 9am on Wednesday (23:00 GMT on Tuesday) where
he will be sentenced to 62 months of time already served.
“Julian
Assange is free,” Wikileaks said in a statement posted on X.
“He left
Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent
1901 days there. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was
released at Stanstead airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane
and departed the UK.”
A video
posted on X by Wikileaks showed Assange dressed in a blue shirt and jeans
signing a document before boarding a private jet.
He will
return to Australia after the hearing, the Wikileaks statement added, referring
to the hearing in Saipan.
“Julian is
free!!!!” his wife Stella wrote on X. “Words cannot express our immense
gratitude to YOU – yes, YOU, who have all mobilised for years and years to make
this come true. THANK YOU. tHANK YOU, THANK YOU.”
Julian Assange
boards flight at London Stansted Airport at 5PM (BST) Monday June 24th. This is
for everyone who worked for his freedom: thank you.#FreedJulianAssange pic.twitter.com/Pqp5pBAhSQ
—
WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 25, 2024
Assange
rose to prominence with the launch of Wikileaks in 2006, creating an online
whistleblower platform for people to submit classified material such as
documents and videos anonymously.
Footage of
a US Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad, which killed a dozen people,
including two journalists, raised the platform’s profile, while the 2010
release of hundreds of thousands of classified US documents on the wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq, as well as a trove of diplomatic cables, cemented its reputation.
‘Holding
the powerful accountable’
Wikileaks
published material about many countries, but it was the US, during the
administration of former US President Donald Trump, that decided to charge him in 2019 with 17 counts of breaching
the Espionage Act.
US lawyers
had argued he conspired with Chelsea Manning, a former army intelligence
analyst, who spent seven years in prison for leaking material to WikiLeaks. She
was freed when US President Barack Obama commuted her sentence in 2017.
The charges
sparked outrage, with Assange’s supporters arguing that, as the publisher and
editor-in-chief of Wikileaks, he should not have faced charges usually used
against government employees who steal or leak information.
Press
freedom advocates, meanwhile, argued that criminally charging Assange was a
threat to free speech.
“WikiLeaks
published groundbreaking stories of government corruption and human rights
abuses, holding the powerful accountable for their actions,” Wikileaks said in
its statement announcing the plea deal.
“As
editor-in-chief, Julian paid severely for these principles, and for the
people’s right to know. As he returns to Australia, we thank all who stood by
us, fought for us, and remained utterly committed in the fight for his
freedom.”
The filing
from the US Department of Justice describing the plea deal [US Department of
Justice via Reuters]
Assange was
first arrested in London in 2010 on a Swedish warrant accusing him of sexual
assault. Allowed bail pending the extradition case, Assange took refuge in
Ecuador’s London Embassy in 2012 after a court ruled he could be sent to Sweden
for trial.
He spent
the next seven years in the tiny embassy – during which time Swedish
police withdrew the rape charges – before UK police arrested
him on charges of breaching his bail conditions. Assange was being held in
prison in the UK as the US extradition case went through the courts.
Monday’s
plea deal comes as pressure mounted on US President Joe Biden to drop the
long-running case against Assange.
In February
the government of Australia made an official request to this effect and Biden
said he would consider it, raising hopes among Assange supporters that his
ordeal might end. At the time, the Australian government said Assange’s case
had “dragged on for too long and there is nothing to be gained by his continued
incarceration”.
A
spokesperson for the Australian government declined to respond to news of the
plea deal, saying it was “not appropriate to provide further comment” until the
proceedings were concluded.
“Prime
Minister Albanese has been clear. Mr Assange’s case has dragged on for too long
and there is nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration,” the spokesperson
added.
‘Power
of quiet diplomacy’
Assange’s
mother, Christine, in a statement to Australian media, meanwhile said she was
grateful that her son’s “ordeal is finally coming to an end”.
“This shows
the importance and power of quiet diplomacy,” she said in the statement carried
by public broadcaster ABC and other media.
Jodie
Ginsberg, chief executive of the Committee to Protect Journalists, told Al
Jazeera she was “delighted” at the news of Assange’s expected release.
“If Julian
had been extradited to the US and prosecuted under the Espionage Act […] it
would have had serious implications for journalists globally who seek
information in the public interest, classified documents, and who then publish
them in the public interest,” she said from New York. “Remember, of course that
Julian is not a US citizen. He is an Australian citizen and if he had been
brought to the US and had he been prosecuted, that could have meant that
journalist anywhere seeking to publish information about human rights abuses,
as Wikileaks did, could have found themselves pursued and prosecuted as the US
had done with Julian.”
She added
that the plea deal was a way for the Biden administration to save face, amid
the increased pressure to release Assange, especially from Australia.
“They [the
Biden administration] have a guilty plea on a criminal charge, but only on one
criminal charge of course, and not the 18 that he was being prosecuted for and
that could have seen him face 175 years in total in jail. And Julian has
been released to his home country and will now be able to spend time with his
family and with his loved ones.”
Play Video
Video
Duration 25 minutes 22 seconds25:22
In
Australia, legislators who fought for Assange’s freedom also welcomed news of
his expected return.
Barnaby
Joyce, a former deputy prime minister, told ABC that it was greatly encouraging
to see Assange on a plane, but cautioned that the “finish line” was not yet
reached. The National Party legislator added that he was “pleased” that the
outcome would set “an incredibly strong precedent” that Australians should not
be charged by other countries for alleged crimes that are not committed on
their soil. “[Extraterritoriality] is a principle, and if you let it lapse for
one then it lapses for all,” he was quoted as saying.
Australian
Greens Senator David Shoebridge said he was looking forward to welcoming
Assange back home.
“Let’s be
clear, Julian Assange should never have been charged with espionage in the
first place or had to make this deal,” Shoebridge said. “[He] has spent years
in jail for the crime of showing the world the horrors of the US war in Iraq
and the complicity of governments like Australia and that is why he has been
punished.”
SOURCE: AL
JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/06/25/julian-assange-is-free-and-has-left-britain_6675637_4.html
