Stella Assange thanks Australian lawmakers for WikiLeaks founder’s freedom

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Stella Assange thanked all the lawmakers who campaigned for her husband. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assangeto be freed during his visit to Australia’s Parliament House on Thursday, where political leaders were divided over how welcome the convicted criminal was in his hometown.

Stella Assange said, “Julian is delighted and deeply grateful to the Australian people, Members of Parliament, the Government and the Opposition who united in demanding his release.”

Assange has made comments denying the country since arriving in australia on wednesday The upcoming guilty plea ended with U.S. Justice Department prosecutors dealing with the acquisition and publication of U.S. military secrets in trade His 14 year prison fight For freedom.

Deliver Julian Assange’s House parliamentary caucus started with a few federal MPs in 2019 and expanded to 47 – a total of five in Canberra – as consensus grew that prosecution On the looseness of WikiLeaks In 2010, sifting through approximately 1,000,000 documents regarding the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan took too much time.

Their legal professionals now need to rally that country’s political support behind a marketing campaign to get Assange pardoned.

“President (Joe) Biden or any next president could certainly, in my view, issue clemency to Julian Assange,” lawyer Barry Pollack said.

On the other hand, White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said on Thursday that Biden does not recall any leniency for Assange.

However while Australian MPs largely rightly said it was time to bring Assange home, they disagreed on whether he would deserve the same support as Australians after recently waiving arbitrary detention in China, Iran and Myanmar. were entitled to or not. For executive interference.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been credited with the diplomatic coup that led to Assange’s release from a London prison. Northern Mariana IslandsA US Commonwealth in the Western Pacific where he pleaded guilty to a single charge under espionage business.

Given credit for the five years Assange spent in Belmarsh prison in the extradition fight, he was allowed to return to Australia without any additional punishment.

Opposition MPs argue that Albany risked damaging relations with the US, Australia’s most prominent security partner, by calling Assange when the former computer hacker landed in Canberra.

Simon Birmingham, the opposition spokesman on international affairs, said, “It is neither necessary nor appropriate for Anthony Albanese to welcome Julian Assange home on the same day that he has admitted engaging in espionage activities.” However Stella Assange argued that her husband should never have been charged.

“He was pleading guilty to doing journalism. This case criminalizes the standard journalistic activity of journalism, journalistic activity, news gathering and publishing,” she said.

Assange was once accused Obtaining and publishing war cables and diplomatic cables that contained key points of U.S. military misdeeds in Iraq and Afghanistan. His actions won the support of press freedom advocates, who heralded his role in bringing to light military behavior that might otherwise have been blurred from view and warned of a chilling effect on newshounds. Some of the files published by WikiLeaks were a video of a 2007 Apache helicopter strike by US forces in Baghdad, which killed 11 people, including two Reuters newshounds.

Assange is celebrated as a transparency crusader by supporters, but criticized by national security advocates, who insist that his behavior put people’s lives at risk and overstepped the boundaries of traditional journalistic practice. Have strayed at some distance from.

At a news conference about Assange’s return, a shocked Albanese refused to say whether or not he considered Assange a journalist who had been wrongly attacked by the US government.

“I think there will continue to be differing views about Julian Assange and his activities,” Albanese said.

“My role as prime minister has been to say firmly that no matter what people’s views are, this ongoing incarceration will serve no purpose,” Albanese said.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong distanced the federal government from Assange’s campaign to pardon the crime.

“This is a matter for Mr. Assange and his legal team and the decision on that is a matter for the United States,” Wong said.

“We are glad he is home. We thought his imprisonment had been prolonged,” he added.

Stella Assange, the South African-born lawyer who married her husband in prison in 2022, has given some clues about her hourly profession.

“He plans to swim in the sea every day. He plans to sleep on a real bed. He plans to taste real food and he plans to enjoy his freedom,” she said.

She said, “Julian is the most principled person I know and he will always defend human rights and speak out against injustice and he can choose how to do that, because he is a free man.”

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Associated Press journalist Aamer Madani in Washington, DC, contributed.