From jail cell to Australia’s big skies, Julian Assange faces huge life change

After spending years in the confined spaces of the Ecuadorean embassy and a small Belmarsh jail cell, Julian Assange will welcome his wife Stella and their two young boys to a new life in ­Australia. He will have to make a big mental adjustment.

Julian Assange arrives at the US Federal Courthouse in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands. Picture: AFP.

The coming months will require a big adjustment for Julian Assange, convicted felon, and his family.

After pleading guilty to an espionage charge in a court in the remote Saipan island on Wednesday morning (AEST), the WikiLeaks founder will be be back on his plane within hours to head home to a significant and profound life change in Australia.

After more than a decade of his energy focused upon avoiding extradition to the US, spending years in the confined spaces of the Ecuadorean embassy and then in a small Belmarsh jail cell, Assange will welcome his lawyer wife Stella and their young boys, Gabriel, seven and Max, five, to a new life in ­Australia.

Julian Assange (C) and his lawyer Jennifer Robinson (R) walk through the security area on his arrival at the US Federal Courthouse in Saipan. Picture: AFP.

In the end, Assange’s hasty exit from Belmarsh prison, where he had spent four of the past five years as a remand prisoner, was as a casu­ally dressed man heading towards freedom, and not in handcuffs for a nightmare legal fight in the US.

It has been a long, hard road over the past 12 years, but Assange has avoided his biggest fear, of being in the hands of American authorities under oppressive conditions in a maximum security jail.

Ms Assange has been agitating for her husband for some time. She told The Australian this year when a suggested plea deal involving residence in Australia was being mooted that “of course” she would follow her husband there.

His dream, she said, was to feel the sand under his feet and to introduce the boys to the open skies and spirit lifting energy of Australia. For her, the move to the other side of the world would be a huge upheaval, but enormous relief.

“I’ve only been (to Australia) once, for a few days, so I will follow him wherever he goes and his safety is the most important thing.’’

Julian Assange looks out of the window from a private jet as he flies from Bangkok to Saipan. Picture; AFP.

However on Wednesday she showed her concerns for her husband’s mental health, posting on X that his senses would be “overloaded” as he arrived at a Saipan court.

“Julian has arrived at the federal court house in Saipan,” she wrote.

“I watch this and think how overloaded his senses must be, walking through the press scrum after years of sensory depravation and the four walls of his high security Belmarsh prison cell.”

Julian has arrived at the federal court house in Saipan.

I watch this and think how overloaded his senses must be, walking through the press scrum after years of sensory depravation and the four walls of his high security Belmarsh prison cell.

pic.twitter.com/BzgkpWPXdy

— Stella Assange #FreeAssangeNOW (@Stella_Assange) June 25, 2024

She also launched a plea for financial help to pay for the private jet in which her husband flew, first from the UK to Bangkok and then on to Saipan.

“Julian’s travel to freedom comes at a massive cost: Julian will owe USD 520,000 which he is obligated to pay back to the Australian government for charter Flight VJ199,” she wrote. “He was not permitted to fly commercial airlines or routes to Saipan and onward to Australia”.

URGENT: Emergency appeal for donations to cover massive USD 520,000 debt for jet.

Julian’s travel to freedom comes at a massive cost: Julian will owe USD 520,000 which he is obligated to pay back to the Australian government for charter Flight VJ199. He was not permitted to fly… pic.twitter.com/J6sTbXij53

— Stella Assange #FreeAssangeNOW (@Stella_Assange) June 25, 2024

Assange’s father John Shipton said on Wednesday his son had “his spirits lifted” and was looking forward to spending time with his family.

“Well, I mean, doing cartwheels is a good expression of the joy that one feels that Julian is returned home, well, about to return home,” he told ABC News before Assange’s plea deal hearing.

“There may be some questions to be resolved by the lawyers and the diplomats in the future, but having Julian home to an ordinary life after 15 years of incarceration in one form or another, house arrest, jail and asylum in an embassy is pretty good news.”

Mr Shipton said Assange will now be able to spend time with his wife and two children.

“As you can easily imagine, that his spirits have lifted,” he said.

Stella Assange posted pictures of Gabriel and Max, the sons she has with Julian Assange. Photo: X

“(He will) be able to walk up and down the beach and feel the sand through his toes in winter, that lovely chill, and be able to learn how to be patient and play with your children for a couple of hours. All of the great beauty of ordinary life.”

Ms Assange’s Australian life change from campaigner to resettlement will be very different. But throughout her life, she has embraced change: she was born Sara Gonzalez Devant in Johannesburg, South Africa, to parents of Spanish and Swedish-Cuban heritage, and was schooled in Lesotho, London and Madrid.

Stella Assange addresses supporters in London. Picture: AFP.

Her sons, both conceived under a tent inside the Ecuadorean embassy in London, have only known their father from brief prison visits.

The world has heard, through various court hearings of the past decade, that Assange has been diag­nosed as being autistic and depressive. In late 2021, he suffered a small stroke and his health had been a constant issue throughout the various court processes.

The Westminster Magistrates Court prevented his extradition to the US because of the “real risk” he would commit suicide if faced with the oppressive or unjust conditions of that prison system.

On Tuesday, hours after she had tweeted that her husband was “free” from Belmarsh, Ms Assange released a short video filmed a week earlier on June 19. In it, she said it was exactly 12 years to the day since Assange had gone to the Ecuador embassy, “which granted him political asylum: protection for persecution, from torture, from a life imprisonment”. There is a glimmer of a smile where she then announced: “This period of our lives, I am confident, now has come to an end. I think that by this time next week Julian will be free.”

A sticking point for lawyers negotiating Assange’s release had been his insistence he would not travel to the mainland US to enter his plea. He was frightened right up to the very end that the Biden administration would rearrest him on American soil.

This is why his plea deal was heard in the North Mariana Islands, en route to Australia.

Assange has now pleaded guilty plea to knowingly and unlawfully conspiring with US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to receive and obtain documents, writings and notes connected with the national defence up to the secret level. His release may come attached with various conditions that may restrict future activism.