WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange returned to his homeland Australia aboard a charter jet on Wednesday, hours after pleading guilty to obtaining and publishing US military secrets in a deal with Justice Department prosecutors that concludes a drawn-out legal saga.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told Parliament that Assange’s freedom, after he spent five years in a British prison fighting extradition to the US, was the result of his government’s “careful, patient and determined work.” “WikiLeaks’s work will continue and Mr. Assange, I have no doubt, will be a continuing force for freedom of speech and transparency in government,” Pollack told reporters outside the Saipan court.
The plea deal, disclosed Monday night in a sparsely detailed Justice Department letter, represents the latest — and presumably final — chapter in a court fight involving the eccentric Australian computer expert who has been celebrated by supporters as a transparency crusader but lambasted by national security hawks who insist that his conduct put lives at risks and strayed far beyond the bounds of traditional journalism duties.
The indictment was unsealed in 2019, but Assange’s legal woes long predated the criminal case and continued well past it. Last month, Assange won the right to appeal an extradition order after his lawyers argued that the US government provided “blatantly inadequate” assurances that he would have the same free speech protections as an American citizen if extradited from Britain.
Source: Law Daily Report (lawdailyreport.net)
Australia Flights Julian Assange Wikileaks
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