Wikipedia founder Julian Assang goes to Australia after 14-year-old legal saga

His release ends a 14-year-old legal age in which Assange spent more than five years in a British maximum security prison and seven years in asylum at the Ecuador Embassy in London, fighting for extradition to Sweden on charges of sexual and US assault.

These charges came from the publishing of Wikipedia in 2010 of hundreds of thousands of classified US military documents on Washington's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq one of the biggest violations of classified information in US history.

During a three-hour hearing session in Saipan, Assang was convicted of a criminal charge of plotting to obtain and uncover classified national defence documents, but said he had believed that the US Constitution's First Amendment, which advocates freedom of speech, defended his activities.

“Working as a journalist, I encouraged my source to provide information said to be classified to publish that information”, he said in court.

I believed the First Amendment protected that activity, but I admit it was... a violation of the spying statute. ”

U.S. district chief judge Ramona V. Manglonna accepted his guilty plea, noting that the US government indicated there were no personal victims in Assang's actions.

She congratulated Assange, who turns 53 on July 3rd, after she released him because of her past time in a British prison.

While the US government viewed Assang as reckless to risk the damage to its agents by publishing their names, its supporters hailed him as a hero for promoting free speech and exposing war crimes, Reuters reports, broadcast Klankosova.tv.

“We firmly believe that Mr. Assange should never have been charged on the basis of the spying Act and included in (a) practice that journalists do every day”, US lawyer Barry Pollack told reporters outside the tribunal.

He said Wikipedia's work will continue.

Assange Jennifer Robinson's lawyer thanked the Australian government for her years of diplomacy in ensuring Assang's release.

It's a great relief for Julian Assange, his family, his friends, his supporters and us and anyone who believes in free speech worldwide that he can now return home to Australia and rejoin his family. She told reporters outside the court.

Assange left the court through numerous television cameras and photographers without answering questions, then waved by hand as he boarded a white SUV.

He left Saipan on a private plane to the Australian capital Canberra, where he is expected to land about 7: 30 p.m. (0930 GMT), according to flight records.

“That Julian can return home to Australia and see his family regularly and do the usual things of life is a treasure,” said his father, John Shipton, for Reuters in Canberra, where he expected his son's return.

Videofile to extract from:

https://www.reuters.com/world/wikileaks-assange-arrives-marine-islands-us-plea-deal-2024-06-25/