Tag: Wikileaks

  • ‘Julian Assange is free’, has left Britain: WikiLeaks

    ‘Julian Assange is free’, has left Britain: WikiLeaks

    Julian Assange’s wife Stella on Tuesday thanked campaigners for their support as the WikiLeaks founder was released after five years in British custody.

    “Julian is free!!!!” she wrote on the social media platform X following confirmation that he had left Belmarsh high-security prison in southeast London.

    “Words cannot express our immense gratitude” to everyone who had backed the global push for his release, she added.

    Stella Assange met the Australian publisher while he was holed up in Ecuador’s London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges that were later dropped.

    Assange, accused of divulging US military secrets related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, had been due back in court in London next month after winning an appeal against extradition.

    But WikiLeaks said in a statement: “Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of June 24, after having spent 1,901 days there.

    “He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK.”

    The media freedom group said sustained campaigning, from grassroots supporters to political leaders and the United Nations, “created the space for a long period of negotiations with the US Department of Justice”, leading to a deal.

    The organisation said the deal “has not yet been formally finalised”.

    Assange was initially detained for skipping bail in relation to the Swedish case and held in custody while the US extradition request wound its way through court.

    He will now be reunited with his wife, whom he married at a ceremony in the prison, and their two young children, it added.

    “WikiLeaks published ground-breaking stories of government corruption and human rights abuses, holding the powerful accountable for their actions,” the statement read.

    “As editor-in-chief, Julian paid severely for these principles, and for the people’s right to know.

    “As he returns to Australia, we thank all who stood by us, fought for us, and remained utterly committed in the fight for his freedom. Julian’s freedom is our freedom.”

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    © Agence France-Presse

  • ‘Enough is enough’, Australia wants WikiLeaks founder back home now

    ‘Enough is enough’, Australia wants WikiLeaks founder back home now

    Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Thursday denounced the years-long US and British legal pursuit of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, saying “enough is enough”.

    The country’s parliament passed a motion Wednesday with the prime minister’s support, calling for an end to 52-year-old Assange’s prosecution so that he can return to his family in Australia.

    Assange, an Australian citizen, will go to London’s High Court next week, seeking leave to appeal against his extradition to the United States for trial on espionage charges.

    “People will have a range of views about Mr Assange’s conduct,” Albanese told parliament. “But regardless of where people stand, this thing cannot just go on and on and on indefinitely.”

    Australians from many sides of politics have a common view, he said, that “enough is enough”.

    Albanese said he had raised Assange’s case “at the highest levels” in Britain and the United States.

    The Australian government had a duty to lobby for its citizens, the prime minister said.

    Independent member of parliament Andrew Wilkie, left, and Julian Assange’s brother Gabriel Shipton, right, speak to the media at Parliament House in Canberra, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024. Australia’s House of Representatives has passed a motion calling on the United States and the UK to end the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and for him to be allowed to return to his home country. (Mick Tsikas/AAP Image via AP)
     (Mick Tsikas / Associated Press)

    He cited the case of Chinese-born Australian journalist Cheng Lei, released in October last year after more than three years’ detention in China on espionage charges.

    Albanese also referred to diplomatic “successes” for Australians held in Vietnam and Myanmar.

    Australian economist Sean Turnell was released from a Myanmar jail in November 2022 after being held for 650 days on allegations of spying and gun-running.

    A Vietnamese dissident with Australian citizenship, Chau Van Kham, was freed from jail in Vietnam in July 2023 following his conviction on terrorism charges.

    Australia should not interfere in the legal processes of other countries, Albanese said.

    “But it is appropriate for us to put our very strong view that those countries need to take into account the need for this to be concluded.”

    Assange has been held in the high-security Belmarsh Prison in southeast London since April 2019.

    He was arrested after holing up for seven years in Ecuador’s London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced accusations of sexual assault, later dropped.

    US authorities want to put the Australian on trial for divulging US military secrets about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Assange’s legal team will be seeking permission to appeal his extradition to the United States at a hearing listed in London’s High Court for February 20 and 21.

    He is accused of publishing some 700,000 confidential documents related to US military and diplomatic activities, starting in 2010.

  • UK court issues order to extradite Julian Assange to US to face trial

    UK court issues order to extradite Julian Assange to US to face trial

    On Wednesday, a United Kingdom (UK) court issued an official judgment extraditing Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, to the United States to face charges related to the publishing of secret material linked to the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

    Priti Patel, the interior minister, now has the final say, albeit Assange has 14 days to appeal any decision to allow the transfer.

    A magistrate’s decision in central London on Wednesday takes the lengthy legal dispute in the UK courts nearer to a resolution.

    However, Assange’s attorneys have promised to make submissions to Patel and, if necessary, to launch more arguments on other issues in the case.

    His lawyers, Birnberg Peirce Solicitors, stated in a statement last month that “no appeal to the High Court has yet been made by him in respect of the other critical points he highlighted earlier”.

    “Of course, that distinct appeal process has yet to be started”.

    Last month, Assange was denied permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court against deportation to the United States, where he might face a life sentence.

    America wants him prosecuted for the leak of 500,000 secret military files from the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    The 50-year-old Australian looked to have earned a relief in January of last year, claiming that being held in solitary confinement at a maximum-security US institution would put him at risk of suicide.

    The US government filed an appeal, and its attorneys cited diplomatic assurances that Assange would not be kept in harsh isolation at a federal jail and would get sufficient care during a two-day appeal hearing in October.

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    Assange appealed the decision, and in January, two judges granted him permission to file an application with the nation’s highest court on “laws of general public significance”.

    However, the court denied the appeal, stating that the application “didn’t establish an arguable question of law”.