WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said on Tuesday that he was freed after years of imprisonment because he “pled guilty to journalism” in an address to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s legal affairs and human rights committee in Strasbourg, France.
Assange made his first public statements since leaving a English prison, where he had spent five years before accepting a plea deal with US lawyers.
Assange’s reflecting on his stormy voyage, said,” I am not completely now because the program worked. I pleaded guilty to journalism, and I am now completely after years of prison.
He more elaborated,” I pled guilty to seeking information from a cause. I pleaded guilty to obtaining knowledge from a cause. And I pleaded guilty to disclosing what knowledge was being disclosed to the consumer.
Assange described the move as” a profound and strange change” from years of captivity in a maximum security facility to speaking to Western politicians. He detailed the experience of years of confinement in a small body, apologizing for his “faltering phrases” and “unpolished presentation” due to the suffering he endured.
Assange’s arrest resulted from his involvement in the release of hundreds of thousands of war reports and political cords, as well as his position in publishing classified US defense information that exposed potential wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. While supporters of press freedom praised his efforts to improve accountability, opponents argued that his actions were dangerous for innocent lives and national security, crossing the line of standard journalism.
His plea, which was accepted by a US district judge in the Northern Mariana Islands, was related to a conspiracy under the Espionage Act cost of obtaining and disseminating defined national defense information without authorization. He was given the five decades of abduction he had previously served in the UK while battling extradition to the US.
Following the publication of a statement on his five-year confinement in a high-security UK prison, Assange made an appearance before the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly. In a review decision, the assembly’s human rights committee described him as a political prisoner and expressed profound concern over how harshly treated he was.
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