Washington/The US Government recalled this Wednesday that the leak of classified documents by WikiLeaks, for which Julian Assange was convicted, forced the State Department to protect US personnel to prevent them from being put in danger. “When we talk about Assange it is important to remind the world that the actions for which he was accused and for which he pleaded guilty put the lives of our partners, allies and diplomats at risk,” the Department of Defense spokesman said at a press conference. State, Matthew Miller.
The representative of American diplomacy did not want to comment on the recent release of the WikiLeaks founder, who returned to his native Australia this Wednesday, and only said that the United States is “happy” to have worked together with its Australian colleagues.
Assange’s freedom was made possible by an agreement with the US Department of Justice that was formalised during a hearing in a court in Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands (US territory), in which he pleaded guilty to violating the US espionage law as part of the pact.
“When we found out that those documents were going to be released, the State Department worked hard to put people out of harm’s way.”
“When we discovered that these documents were going to be published, the State Department worked hard to put people out of harm’s way. We looked at what could be made public and took action,” added the US spokesman.
The fact that there were no victims, as he stressed, does not exempt him from responsibility for the consequences that could have occurred.
“If you are driving drunk down the street and you are stopped for drunk driving, the fact that you did not crash into another car and kill someone does not absolve you of your reckless actions and the danger in which you have put your fellow citizens. Here it is the same principle applies,” Miller said.
The spokesman insisted that the documents leaked by WikiLeaks gave information about people who were in contact with the State Department, “including opposition leaders and human rights activists around the world”, who were left in danger.
“Their public disclosure also chilled the ability of US personnel to build relationships and have frank conversations with them.”
“Its public disclosure also chilled the ability of US personnel to build relationships and have frank conversations with them. (…) And that’s not to mention WikiLeaks’ future actions to essentially serve as a conduit for Russian intelligence interference in the election. presidential elections of the United States,” he stressed.
Following the leak, Sweden issued an arrest warrant for Assange on charges of sexual abuse, which were later dropped. The founder of WikiLeaks took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012, until he was arrested by British authorities in 2019, spending the last five years in a high-security prison.
His recent release ended a 14-year saga that began in 2010 with the largest leak of classified documents in US history, which questioned Washington’s role in the world by revealing attacks on civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as such as the mistreatment of prisoners in Guantánamo, among other issues.
