Assange’s defiant gesture on return as wife asks for time to recover

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has returned to Australia with a clenched-fist gesture in emotional scenes in Canberra on Wednesday night, as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese vowed to always stand up for citizens in trouble overseas.

Assange made a symbolic show of victory, his arm outstretched and his fist clenched, after stepping onto Australian soil for the first time in 14 years, as he hugged his wife, Stella Assange, and his father, John Shipton, on the tarmac.

Julian Assange punches his fist in the air as he arrives in Canberra.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

A crowd gathered in Canberra to greet the controversial figure, hailed a hero by some and traitor by others, when he landed in Australia after a plea deal in a remote Pacific island courthouse to end years of legal pursuit by United States authorities.

Assange told Albanese “you saved my life” in a phone conversation as soon as the charter flight landed, with the prime minister saying the WikiLeaks founder described the arrival as a “surreal and happy moment” after years in prison.

Stella Assange made an emotional plea for her husband to be given privacy while he reunited with their children, while she also signalled a campaign to secure a presidential pardon for Assange in the years ahead.

“Julian wanted me to sincerely thank everyone,” she told a packed press conference in Canberra, as supporters jostled to see the Assange family and his lawyers, Jennifer Robinson and Barry Pollack, and others clamoured to enter the room.

Stella Assange greets her husband on the tarmac. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“But you have to understand what he’s been through. He needs time. He needs to recuperate. And this is a process. I ask you - please - to give us space, to give us privacy. To find our place. To let our family be a family before he can speak again at a time of his choosing.”

She argued for a pardon for her husband not only for his sake but because, she said, the US prosecution against him set a disturbing precedent and put all journalists at risk.

Robinson, the key lawyer who has acted for Assange in London for many years, also described the prosecution under the US Espionage Act as a grave threat to free speech.

Illustration: Matt Golding

In a key statement to critics of Assange who claim his revelations put lives at risk, Robinson cited the court decision on Wednesday as proof this was not so, given the judge said nobody had been harmed as a result of his activities.

Assange arrived in Australia after appearing in a courtroom in the Northern Mariana Islands, a United States commonwealth in the Pacific, earlier in the day, where he pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defence information.

His arrival in Australia for the first time in 14 years brought a dramatic end to a legal saga that tested the boundaries of press freedom and required skilful lobbying by the Albanese government and Assange supporters to secure his release.

Albanese said at a press conference at 8pm, just as Assange disembarked from a chartered flight, that the release of Assange had taken years of diplomatic effort and showed the government was “not in a contest of machismo” because it worked quietly behind the scenes rather than talking in public about its negotiations with the US.

“I believe in standing up for Australian citizens,” he said of his talks with US President Joe Biden and the broader effort to settle the case.

Julian Assange and his father John Shipton reunite at the airport. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Albanese acknowledged the strong opinions about Assange and did not take sides on the dispute about whether he was a journalist and had been unfairly pursued.

While the prime minister welcomed Assange home, there are no plans for a public show of support in a joint press conference or other event together in coming days.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton remained silent in question time on Wednesday when Albanese spoke about Assange, while other Coalition frontbenchers have criticised the WikiLeaks founder this week and said his work had undermined the US and its allies.

Stella Assange told the BBC that her husband “will have to pay the Australian government $US520,000 ($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.

The US Justice Department on Wednesday 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.

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

At his Mariana Islands plea, 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.

“I hope there will be some peace restored,” she said, wishing Assange a “happy birthday” as his 53rd birthday falls next week.

Assange was originally charged with 18 felony counts, carrying a maximum prison sentence of 175 years.

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.

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