HAILED AS HERO
Whereas the US authorities considered Assange as reckless for placing its brokers vulnerable to hurt by publishing their names, his supporters hailed him as a hero for selling free speech and exposing struggle crimes.
“We firmly imagine that Mr Assange by no means ought to have been charged below the Espionage Act and engaged in (an) train that journalists have interaction in every single day,” his US lawyer, Barry Pollack, informed reporters outdoors the court docket.
He mentioned WikiLeaks’ work would proceed.
Assange’s British and Australian lawyer Jennifer Robinson thanked the Australian authorities for securing Assange’s launch. His father, John Shipton, informed Reuters he was relieved.
“That Julian can come residence to Australia and see his household usually and do the atypical issues of life is a treasure,” Shipton mentioned in Canberra, the place he was ready for his son.
“The great thing about the atypical is the essence of life.”
Assange had agreed to plead responsible to a single felony rely, based on filings within the US District Courtroom for the Northern Mariana Islands.
The US territory within the western Pacific was chosen because of his opposition to travelling to the mainland US and for its proximity to Australia, prosecutors mentioned.
Politicians in Australia who had campaigned for his launch raised concern in regards to the responsible plea on US soil, saying he was a journalist who had been convicted for doing his job.
“That may be a actually alarming precedent. It’s the type of factor we would count on in an authoritarian or totalitarian nation,” mentioned Andrew Wilkie, an impartial lawmaker who led a parliamentary group advocating for Assange.
Assange spent greater than 5 years in what Choose Manglona known as one in every of Britain’s harshest prisons and 7 years holed up within the Ecuadorean embassy in London as he fought extradition.
Whereas caught on the embassy he had two sons with Stella, who had been one in every of his legal professionals. They married in 2022 at Belmarsh jail in London.
