'Recovered' Assange promotes Cannes documentary

'Recovered' Assange promotes Cannes documentary

Assange wearing a t-shirt with the names of killed Gaza children, with his wife Stella

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has "recovered" from his years in detention, his wife told AFP, as a new documentary about him premiered at the Cannes film festival on Wednesday.

Assange is at the world's biggest film festival to promote "The Six Billion Dollar Man" by American director Eugene Jarecki but is not yet speaking publicly.

After posing for photographers on Tuesday wearing a T-shirt with the names of killed Gaza children, he reappeared Wednesday for the red-carpet screening wearing a black tuxedo.

The 53-year-old former hacker has declined all interview requests, however, with his wife Stella Assange saying that "he'll speak when he's ready."

But she was upbeat about his health and said he was already thinking about his next steps.

"We live with incredible nature at our doorstep (in Australia). Julian's very outdoorsy. He always has been. He's really recovered physically and mentally," Stella, a Spanish-Swedish lawyer, told AFP.

Assange was released from a high-security British prison last June after a plea bargain with the US government over Wikileaks's work publishing top-secret military and diplomatic information.

He spent five years behind bars fighting extradition from Britain and another seven holed up in the Ecuador embassy in London where he claimed political asylum.

- 'Right side of history' -

Award-winning director Jarecki said his film aimed to correct the record about Assange, whose methods and personality make him a divisive figure. 

"I think Julian Assange put himself in harm's way for the principle of informing the public about what corporations and governments around the world are doing in secret," Jarecki told AFP.

Anyone willing to trade years of their life for their principles, "I think you'd have to look at that person as having heroic qualities," he added.

The film includes never-seen footage, including personal videos handed over by Stella, a Wikileaks lawyer who had two children with Assange while he was living in the Ecuadorian embassy.

It also features testimony from people who helped spy on Assange, including an Icelandic FBI informant and a private security agent who said he installed bugs accessed by US security services in the Ecuadorian embassy.

Ecuador's left-wing former president Rafael Correa, who offered Assange asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, also attended Wednesday's screening. 

"I believe we were on the right side of history," he told AFP.

Jarecki's film seeks to address criticism of Assange, notably that he endangered lives by publishing unredacted US documents which included the names of people who had spoken to American diplomats or spies.

- 'Complete fabrication' -

The film extensively features supportive figures, while giving little time to opposing views.

"Baywatch" actress and Assange friend Pamela Anderson makes an appearance, as does American whistleblower Edward Snowden, and left-wing Greek ex-minister Yanis Varifakis who compares the Wikileaks founder to Greek god Prometheus. 

The film lays the blame for the publication of a trove of 251,000 US diplomatic cables by Wikileaks in 2011 on veteran investigative British journalist David Leigh, alleging he published the password to access the database. 

Leigh, who collaborated with Assange while working at the Guardian newspaper, told AFP he had never been contacted by Jarecki and he called the theory "a complete fabrication".

"It was Julian and Julian alone who did it. He's been trying to find an excuse ever since," he said by phone.

Jarecki also dismissed any links between Wikileaks and Russian intelligence services over the leak of Democratic Party emails ahead of the 2016 US presidential election which embarrassed Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton.

An investigation by US special counsel Robert Mueller, who probed alleged Russian interference in the 2016 vote, found evidence that Russian military intelligence hacked the Democratic Party and passed the information to Wikileaks.

The documentary also examines the role of Swedish prosecutors in starting a sexual assault investigation into Assange, concluding that there was no case to answer. 

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Originally published as 'Recovered' Assange promotes Cannes documentary