The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assangesaid Tuesday that he was released after years imprisoned because he pleaded “guilty of journalism.”
Assange gave testimony about the impact of his arrest and conviction on human rights before the Legal Affairs and Human Rights committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France. The Assembly includes parliamentarians from 46 European countries.
“Today I am not free because the system has worked,” Assange said in his first public statements since his release in June. “Today I am free after years of imprisonment because I pleaded guilty to journalism.”
This is how Assange arrived:
“I pleaded guilty to seeking information from a source. I pleaded guilty to obtaining information from a source. And I pleaded guilty to informing the public,” he added.
Assange was released in June after passing five years in a British prison after pleading guilty to obtaining and publishing US military secretsin an agreement with prosecutors from the United States Department of Justice that ended a long legal saga. Before entering prison, he spent seven years in self-imposed exile in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he requested asylum due to political persecution.
The transition from years of confinement in a maximum security prison Addressing European parliamentarians has been a “profound and surreal turn,” Assange said as he detailed his experience of years of isolation in a small cell.
“It strips one of their sense of self, leaving only the raw essence of existence,” he explained, his voice breaking as he apologized for his “hesitant words” and “unpolished presentation.”
Assange statement:
“I am not yet fully prepared to talk about what I have suffered: the relentless struggle to stay alive, both physically and mentally,” Assange said.
The Australian digital publisher was accused of receiving and publishing hundreds of thousands of war reports and diplomatic cables that included details of the irregularities committed by the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. His activity was celebrated by press freedom advocates, who praised his work in exposing military conduct that might otherwise have remained hidden.
Among the files published by WikiLeaks There was a video of the attack by US forces on an Apache helicopter in 2007 in Baghdad, in which 11 people died, including two journalists of Reuters.
But critics allege that his conduct endangered American national security as well as innocent lives (those who reported to Washington’s troops in Iraq and Afghanistan), and deviated from the obligations of traditional journalism.
Julian Assange’s closing remarks at PACE in Strasbourg end with a standing ovation:
“In 2010 I was living in Paris. I went to the United Kingdom and never came back, until now. It’s good to be back. It’s good to be among people who – as we say in Australia – who give a damn.… pic.twitter.com/6UjqSIl2b4
—WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 1, 2024
The dispute ended with Assange pleading guilty in a US district court in the Northern Mariana Islands, an unincorporated US territory in the Pacific.
Assange pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge, contemplated in the Espionage Actto illegally obtain and disseminate classified national defense information. A judge sentenced him to the five years in prison he had already served in the United Kingdom while fighting extradition to the United States.
He returned to Australia as a man free at the end of June. His wife, Stella, then said that Assange needed time to recover before speaking publicly again.
His appearance on Tuesday comes after the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe published a report on his detention in a British high security prison for five years.
The assembly’s human rights committee indicated that Assange qualified as a political prisoner and issued a draft resolution expressing deep concern about the deal.
SNGZ
