‘Nothing to be ashamed of’: Lawyers defiant as Assange heads to Australia

Julian Assange’s lawyers have struck a defiant tone after the WikiLeaks founder pleaded guilty to a felony charge, insisting their client should never have been accused of a crime, and warning his conviction has put journalists around the world at risk of imprisonment for doing their jobs.

Assange is en route to Australia after appearing in a courtroom in the Northern Mariana Islands, a United States commonwealth in the Pacific, where he pleaded guilty to conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified US national defence information.

The US Justice Department defended its six-year-long pursuit of Assange, accusing him of behaving differently to traditional journalists and putting individuals who helped the US government “at great personal risk” by not redacting their names from published documents.

Assange would be banned from returning to the US without permission as a result of the conviction, the Justice Department said.

Assange is scheduled to arrive in Canberra on Wednesday night, where he will be greeted by his father, John Shipton, and wife Stella Assange, and is expected to appear with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Stella Assange told the BBC that her husband “will have to pay the Australian government US$520,000 ($777,000) back for the chartered flights” that brought him from London to Canberra via Bangkok and Saipan.

She said Assange’s supporters had already raised more than half the sum required through a crowdfunding appeal.

Judge Ramona Manglona said it was important to recognise that Assange had been jailed for 62 months in a London prison, roughly equivalent to the time US Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning served for disclosing classified information about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to WikiLeaks.

Noting there was “no personal victim here” as a result of the information disclosed by WikiLeaks, Manglona said: “It appears that your 62 months in prison is very reasonable and proportionate to Ms Manning’s actual prison time.”

Timing mattered, Manglona said, noting she would have been less inclined to accept the plea deal if it were presented to her in 2012. “I hope there will be some peace restored,” she said, wishing Assange a happy birthday for when he turns 53 next week.

Assange was originally charged with 18 felony counts carrying a maximum prison sentence of 175 years. US government lawyer Matthew McKenzie told the court he believed Assange’s time served of 62 months was an “appropriate sentence”.

Assange’s London-based lawyer Jennifer Robinson said Wednesday was “a historic day”, one that “brings to an end a case which has been recognised as the greatest threat to the First Amendment [of the US Constitution regarding freedom of expression] in the 21st century”.

Robinson said the conviction had set a “dangerous precedent that should be of concern to journalists everywhere”.

Addressing reporters gathered outside the courtroom, she said: “The US is seeking to exercise extraterrestrial jurisdiction over all of you without giving you constitutional free speech protections, and anyone who cares about free speech and democratic accountability should stand against it.”

Robinson praised Albanese for his “statesmanship, his principled leadership and his diplomacy, which made this outcome possible”.

“We wouldn’t be here today without the prime minister of Australia’s support,” she said.

Albanese told parliament that Assange’s release was the result of “careful, patient and determined work - work that I am very proud of”.

“This work has been complex and it has been considered,” he said.

“This is what is standing up for Australians around the world look like. It means getting the job done,
getting results and getting outcomes.”

A plane carrying WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange takes off from Saipan, Mariana Islands.Credit: AP

Assange’s US lawyer Barry Pollock said there was “nothing that [Assange] should be ashamed of”.

“Yes, he received classified information from Chelsea Manning and he published that information,” Pollock said. “That should not be a crime.”

Assange had “suffered tremendously” for publishing “truthful, newsworthy information, including revealing that the United States had committed war crimes”, Pollock said.

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie said he was thrilled by Assange’s release but said the case had set an “alarming precedent” for journalism.

The US Justice Department said that Assange was not merely a passive recipient of classified information, accusing him of encouraging Manning to provide documents to WikiLeaks, including by telling her that “curious eyes never run dry in my experience”.

The Justice Department said that, unlike traditional news organisations, “Assange and WikiLeaks disclosed many of the raw classified documents without removing any personally identifying information”.

“Assange’s decision to reveal the names of human sources illegally shared with him by Manning created a grave and imminent risk to human life,” the department said.

“For example, the State Department cables that WikiLeaks disseminated included information from journalists, religious leaders, human rights advocates, and political dissidents who had chosen to provide information to the United States in confidence at significant risk to their own safety.”

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