The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange arrived in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific Ocean, where he plans to appear in court to formalize an agreement with the US Government. which will allow him to return to his native Australia as a free man and reunite with his wife and two young children.
The charter flight VJT199 of the VistaJet company in which Assange traveled took off this Tuesday around 9:20 p.m. local time from the Thai capital, after having made a stop of more than eight hours at the Don Mueang international airport, where he arrived from London. During the stop in Bangkok, WikiLeaks only released an image of the journalist landing in the capital inside the plane, where it is believed he remained the entire time.
Assange’s long journey comes after the agreement between him and US Justice was revealed on Monday, in which will plead guilty to a single count of conspiring to illegally obtain and disseminate classified information and will be sentenced to 62 months in prison, equivalent to the time he has already served in the high-security Belmarsh prison in the United Kingdom. The appearance will be this Wednesday in the Mariana Islands due to Assange’s opposition to traveling to the continental United States and the proximity of the court to Australia, according to a letter from the US Department of Justice.
The joy of family
His wife, Stella Assangeexpressed his joy on social networks after the release. “Julian is free. Words cannot express our immense gratitude to you. Yes, you, who mobilized for years and years to make this a reality. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you”wrote the Spanish-Swedish lawyer born in South Africa.
Stella Assange is in Australia along with her two children, Gabriel and Max, born respectively in 2017 and 2019 and who only saw their father during visits in the United Kingdom prison. In a subsequent post she noted: “Saipan is a remote overseas territory of the United States (…) Julian will not be safe until he reaches Australia.”
The journalist’s mother, Christine Assange, said she was grateful that her son’s ordeal was coming to an end. “This shows the importance and power of secret diplomacy,” she said, according to statements reported by the AFP news agency.
global celebration
The Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanesealso celebrated the release of the 52-year-old journalist. “There is nothing to gain from his imprisonment and we want him back in Australia”Albanese said at a session in Canberra Parliament.
The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obradorsaid he was happy about Assange’s release from prison. “It was a very unfair thing, it was like having freedom and especially freedom of expression in prison”, said the president during his morning press conference. “They (Assange and his relatives) know what we did, both with the Government of President Trump and in the Government of President Biden,” he remarked, mentioning that for years he sent letters to both presidents within the framework of the global campaign to liberate the journalist. As an example, he also presented a letter sent to Biden, dated January 2023, in which he mentioned that Mexico was willing to give asylum to the Australian because he considered him a political prisoner.
Claudia Sheinbaum, the successor of López Obrador and former head of government of the country’s capital, recalled that last February she handed the Keys to the City to the family of Julian Assange. “For us Julian represents the truth, freedom of expression. “We are a progressive city that has always defended great freedoms and the right to free access to information,” she indicated.
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silvahe noted in a message published on his social networks. “The world today is a little better and less unfair. Julian Assange is free after 1,901 days in prison.” And he added: “His release from him and return home, although belated, represent a democratic victory and the fight for freedom of the press,” he stated.
The Colombian president, Gustavo Petroexpressed: “I congratulate Julian Assange for his freedom. Assange’s eternal imprisonment and his torture It was an attack on press freedom on a global scale.“And he added: “Denouncing the massacre of civilians in Iraq by the US war effort was their crime, now the massacre is repeated in Gaza.”
The former Bolivian president expressed himself along the same lines, Evo Morales“We are delighted to have Julian Assange freed. He was imprisoned for many years for exposing the crimes of the United States to the world. It helped us reveal and dismantle the lies that justify wars and invasions“It is a day of joy for the fight for peace,” he said.
The organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) considered Assange’s freedom as a victory for press freedom and journalism, although it expressed its concern that what happened to him could be repeated with other journalists“There is still concern because without reform, without the introduction of a public interest defence, among other measures, (the US law on espionage) can be used against other journalists, against other media, against anyone who works with classified information,” said RSF campaigns director Rebecca Vincent in statements to the EFE news agency.
The legal odyssey
After working as a free software programmer and studying mathematics and physics that he did not complete in Australia, Assange co-founded WikiLeaks in 2006, a platform for publishing government information and making it accessible to the public. The page became world famous in 2010 after publish hundreds of thousands of documents that revealed the secrets in the United States of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as data on the detainees at the Guantanamo base, among other matters. For example, the posts included a video showing US soldiers shooting civilians in Iraq in 2007.
The Australian’s legal problems began in 2010, when Sweden demanded Assange’s arrest for two accusations, one for the rape of a woman and another for sexual harassment, during a visit to Stockholm to give a conference. Those charges would eventually be dropped.
Assange denied the veracity of both accusations, but had to undergo house arrest in the English rural home of a friend and colleague, until in May 2012 the High Court in London agreed to his extradition to Sweden. In June, given the harassment to which he was being subjected and to avoid his extradition, Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he spent seven years during the government of Rafael Correa.
With Lenin Moreno’s rise to power, Ecuador stopped granting asylum to Assange. He was arrested by British authorities on 11 April 2019, while the US justice system, which had already accused him of computer piracy, charged him with 17 other charges under anti-espionage laws, exposing Assange to up to 175 years in prison.
