Summary of the day …
Julian Assange has arrived in Canberra, after being released from prison in the UK on Monday, and then pleading guilty to violating US espionage law at a court in the US Pacific island territory of Saipan on Wednesday morning. The deal left him free to return home to Australia and brought an end to an extraordinary 14-year legal saga
Assange and the US government agreed he would admit guilt to one criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents. He was sentenced to time served, with no supervisory period or financial penalty, due to time already served in Belmarsh prison in London. He flew out of Saipan
Speaking to reporters outside the Saipan court, his lawyers called the prosecution “unprecedented” and an assault on free speech, but said it was time the fight came to an end. Assange spent five years in the high-security jail and seven years at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, battling extradition to the US, where he faced 18 criminal charges
Assange needs time to recover after his 14-year legal saga, his wife, Stella, said, following his arrival back in Australia. “Julian needs time to recover. To get used to freedoms. Someone told me yesterday who had been through something similar, that freedom comes slowly,” she said in front of a packed room of reporters. “And I want Julian to have that space to rediscover freedom, slowly. And quickly”
Assange’s lawyer Barry Pollack thanked the former Australia prime minister, Kevin Rudd, who now serves as the Australian ambassador to the US, along with the serving prime minister, Anthony Albanese. Robinson said she had become “very emotional” upon landing in Australia, and that Albanese had been the first to speak with Assange over the phone
Albanese had taken up the issue with the US president, Joe Biden. “This is what standing up for Australians around the world looks like,” Albanese said
Stella Assange asked supporters for help covering the “massive USD 520,000 debt” to the Australian government for the chartered flight as he was not allowed to fly on commercial airlines to Saipan and onward to Australia
Here is reminder of Stella Assange speaking to the media earlier today after her husband arrived in Australia.
