The United States Government recalled this Wednesday that the leak of classified documents by WikiLeaksby which Julian Assange was convicted, forced Department of State to protect American personnel 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 they put the lives of our partners, allies and diplomats at risk“State Department spokesperson said at a press conference. 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 possible after an agreement with the United States Department of Justice that was formalized during a hearing in a court in Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands (US territory), in which he declared guilty of violating 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 make the people out of danger. We looked at what could be made public and took action,” Miller added. United States.
According to the spokesperson, the fact that there were no victims does not exempt us 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 you have put your fellow citizens in. The same principle applies here,” exemplified the American.
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.
“His public disclosure It also chilled the ability of American personnel to build relationships and have frank conversations with them. (…) And that’s without mentioning WikiLeaks’ future actions to essentially serve as a conduit for Russian intelligence interference in the United States presidential elections,” he stressed.
After the filtration, Sweden issued a warrant against 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. The US justice system had charged Assange with up to 18 counts of violating the Espionage Act.
The leak of classified information called into question the role of Washington in the world by revealing attacks on civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the mistreatment of prisoners in Guantánamo, among other issues.
Various political figures have reacted to Assange’s release. The Government of China assured this week that the work carried out by Assange has allowed the world “know more about the truth.”
For his part, the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petrospoke out on Monday regarding the release of the WikiLeaks founder. “I congratulate Julian Assange on his freedom. Assange’s eternal imprisonment and torture was an attack on press freedom on a global scale. “Denouncing the massacre of civilians in Iraq by the US military was his crime, now the massacre is being repeated in Gaza,” Petro said on his profile.
The former president Ernesto Samper He also dedicated a message in which he described Julián Assange as a “digital martyr.” Also the president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador He expressed on social networks and in his morning conference his approval for the release of the founder of Wikileaks.
(With information from EFE)
