TRANSCRIPT
After a decades-long ordeal Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been released from prison in the United Kingdom and is set to return to Australia. After years fighting extradition to the United states, Julian Assange has agreed to plead guilty to one count of espionage and is set to face sentencing later this week.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been freed from prison in the United Kingdom with his tumultuous and long running legal battle set to draw to a close. The 52-year-old Australian journalist has spent years fighting extradition to the United States over espionage charges related to the release of hundreds of thousands of classified US documents.Now, Mr Assange has agreed to plead guilty to one charge of violating US espionage laws as part of a deal struck with US prosecutors.
Julian's wife, Stella Assange, says she is elated and is grateful for the hard work done by his supporters.
"Throughout the years of Julian's imprisonment and persecution, an incredible movement has been formed, a movement of people from all walks of life, from around the world who support not just Julian, and not just us in our family, but what Julian stands for, truth and Justice. We still need your help. What starts now with Julian's Freedom is a new chapter."
After landing in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific, Mr Assange is set to plead guilty for the single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents.
While many are relieved by the plea deal and his imminent return, others say it is problematic.
Cindy Cohn is the Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to defending civil liberties in the digital world.
She says the prosecution should not have happened in the first place.
“This is the first time in the 100 year history of the Espionage Act that a journalist or someone committing journalism, someone engaging in journalistic act, has been prosecuted under the Espionage Act for essentially receiving information and communicating information. This is something that journalists do all the time. They receive information and they communicate information. And journalists who cover national security have a responsibility to try to help keep the rest of us informed about what our government is up to.”
Mr Assange was indicted during former US President Donald Trump's administration, over Wikileaks mass release of secret documents in 2010.
The documents were released by former US military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning who was also prosecuted under the Espionage Act.
The trove of more than 700,000 documents included diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts of U-S troops in Iraq.
Chief Executive of the Committee to Protect Journalists Jodie Ginsberg told SBS that her team will be watching for future implications of the case.
"He is pleading guilty after facing a very long period of challenging this and there being no movement from the US. Only very recently did we see that the US was prepared to accept a plea deal. So while we didn't see this go to court, and it set the precedent that it could have done, nevertheless, Julian has effectively had to plead guilty to an activity that's the kind of activity that journalists globally perform, day in day out, in the public interest, and obviously that is problematic ... but in the meantime, clearly it is to be celebrated that he is free and can be with his family, and that this case, which should never have been brought against him, did not come to court in the US."
Mr Assange is set to face sentencing on the island of Saipan, [[sigh-pan]] a commonwealth of the United States reportedly chosen both for it's proximity to Australia and because of Mr Assange's opposition to traveling to mainland United States.
In his sentencing, Mr Assange will be credited the time he spent in a K prison and will be free to return home to Australia.
Jodie Ginsberg says extradition would have had serious implications for press freedom worldwide.
"It has been a case that has cast a very long shadow over press freedom globally. Had Julian been prosecuted, had he been extradited to the US and faced trial over these charges, it could have had very serious implications for journalists everywhere, for journalists who seek information in the public interests, who seek classified information and seek to publish it, that's what journalists do the world over, and it's very important that we protect that right fiercely."
Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce is among a number of Australian politicians welcoming the news.
Mr Joyce says that while he believes Mr Assange's actions were not morally correct they do not give the United States the right to extradite an Australian.
"And if the dissemination of this information as a crime, then every person where I now stand in the Parliament of Australia's Fourth Estate is on their way to the United States of America because you all printed it. And you know, that creates massive confusion. I don't want a place in Australia where if I offend the Quran I'm off to Riyadh, if I offend the Chinese Communist Party, I'm off to Beijing, or an Australian citizen who offends a law in the United States is off the United States, unless he's in the United States when he commits it, and if that's case, it's a completely different issue."
The Australian Government has said in a statement that while it is unable to comment on the situation as legal proceedings are scheduled, it will provide consular assistance to Mr Assange.
Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong says that both she and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reiterate that this has gone on too long.
"Over the last two years, the Albanese government has advocated for him to come home. That advocacy has been led by the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister has been very clear about the priority he gave gives to Mr Assange's case. He has been supported in that by the Attorney General, by me, by the relentless work of senior diplomats and others, and we want to be in a position to see Mr Assange reunited with his family in Australia."
