WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is “rediscovering” life as he tastes freedom in Australia after five years in a high-security London prison, his wife said on Thursday.
The 52-year-old arrived in Canberra the night before, just hours after he was convicted in a US Pacific island court of leaking military secrets.
Under a plea agreement, he was sentenced to time already spent in prison and was released, ending a 14-year legal battle with the US Justice Department.
But the time spent in prison has taken a heavy toll.
Assange did not attend any press conference after arriving here, with his wife crying and pleading with the family to give him privacy and time to recover.
“He is enjoying freedom for the first time in 14 years. He needs time to rest and recuperate. And he is rediscovering normal life. And for that he needs space,” Stella Assange told reporters on Thursday.
“Julian plans to swim in the ocean every day. He plans to sleep in a real bed. He plans to taste real food. And he plans to enjoy his freedom.”
‘Jumping on the couch’
He said the WikiLeaks publisher had not yet seen his two children, who were staying elsewhere and sleeping when the plane landed.
Stella Assange said she had sent her husband a video on the day of the US court hearing of their children “jumping on the sofa” at the prospect of their father’s return.
Assange spent more than five years in London’s Belmarsh prison fighting extradition to the United States under the 1917 Espionage Act.
He had already lived in Ecuador’s London embassy for seven years to avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges, although the sexual assault charges against him were later dropped.
Stella said the couple had not had time to discuss what their lives would be like since Assange’s release Stella said the couple had not had time to discuss what their lives would be like since Assange’s release Stella met Assange when he was in the Ecuadorian embassy and married him in a London prison.
Assange’s legal team argues that legal action against their client by the US Justice Department would have a negative impact on journalism.
He has called on US President Joe Biden to grant him a pardon following his plea agreement in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands.
“The president of the United States has full pardon power. President Biden or any subsequent president can, and in my view should, grant a pardon to Julian Assange,” his U.S. trial lawyer, Barry Pollack, said.
People were put in ‘danger’
Stella Assange said her husband had “pleaded guilty to doing journalism – this case makes journalism a crime”.
Assange has published thousands of confidential US documents on the WikiLeaks whistleblowing website since 2010.
He became a hero to those campaigning for freedom of expression, but a villain to those who thought he had endangered American security and intelligence sources.
The Australian citizen was indicted by a US federal grand jury in 2019 on 18 counts relating to the publication of national security documents by WikiLeaks.
The material he released through WikiLeaks included a video of civilians killed by fire from a US helicopter gunship in Iraq in 2007. The victims included a photographer and a driver for Reuters.
On Wednesday, the US State Department again accused him of putting people in danger.
“The documents they have published contain identifying information about individuals who were in contact with the State Department,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters in Washington.
“This included opposition leaders from around the world, human rights activists — people whose positions were threatened.”
The US Justice Department has barred Assange from returning to the US without permission.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
