‘Let us stop gagging … and killing each other’: Assange breaks his silence

Strasbourg: Julian Assange says he is only free because he pleaded guilty to being a journalist and admits his personal transition from years confined in a maximum security prison to freedom has been a “profound and a surreal shift” with which he is still struggling.

The 53-year-old WikiLeaks founder, released in June after five years in a British prison after a plea deal with the US government, said it was important to remember he was not free because the legal system worked, but only because he chose it over “an unrealisable justice”.

Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, delivers a speech beside his wife Stella Assange at the European council in Strasbourg, France, on Wednesday.Credit: Getty Images

“I am free today after years of incarceration because I pleaded guilty to journalism; pleaded guilty to seeking information from sources; I pleaded guilty to obtaining information from a source and I pleaded guilty to inform the public,” Assange said, in his first public comments since his release from prison.

Speaking at the Council of Europe legal affairs and human rights committee in Strasbourg, France, on Wednesday, Assange stressed the US “insisted” on him agreeing not to file a case at the European Court of Human Rights against it in return for the plea deal.

Wearing a navy-blue suit and a maroon tie, Assange coughed regularly through his 45-minute address to the council, occasionally stumbling over his words. He admitted he found it difficult to talk about his lengthy experience behind bars.

“The experience of isolation for years in a small cell is difficult to convey,” he said. “It strips away one’s sense of self, leaving only the raw essence of existence. I am yet not fully equipped to speak about what I have endured, the relentless struggle to stay alive, both physically and mentally.”

“Isolation has taken its toll, which I am trying to unwind and expressing myself in this setting is a challenge.”

The Australian citizen was released after he was convicted of obtaining and publishing US military secrets in the deal with US Justice Department prosecutors that concluded a drawn-out legal saga. A judge sentenced him to the five years he had already spent behind bars in a high-security UK prison while fighting extradition to the US.

Before his time in prison, he had spent seven years in self-imposed exile in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he claimed asylum on the grounds of political persecution, and fought extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations.

He returned to Australia in late June. At the time his wife, Stella, said he needed time to recuperate before speaking publicly.

Assange was critical of the regimes in Russia and China for targeting journalists in those countries and around the world who tried to expose repression, and pledged solidarity to murdered journalists in Ukraine and Gaza.

He said he had no regrets about his decision to publish hundreds of thousands of war logs and diplomatic cables that included details of US military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan, including a video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.

“The visual reality of modern warfare shocked the world,” Assange said.

“But we also used interest in this video to direct people to the classified policies for when the US military could deploy lethal force in Iraq … and how many civilians could be killed before gaining higher approval.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is seen on a large screen as he addresses the Council of Europe.Credit: AP

“In fact, 40 years of my potential 175-year sentence was for obtaining and releasing those policies,” he said, referring to the total penalty that could have applied if he had been extradited to and convicted in the US.

“Let us stop gagging, torturing and killing each other for a change. Get these fundamentals right, and other political, economic and scientific processes will have space to pay, will have space to take care of the rest.”

Assange remains a highly contentious figure globally. His supporters hail him as a figurehead of free speech and investigative journalism who has been persecuted for exposing information. His detractors see him as a reckless blogger whose decision to publish highly sensitive documents put lives at risk and seriously compromised American security.

Assange was invited to Strasbourg to provide evidence to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The committee recently published a report on his detention, saying he qualified as a political prisoner, and issued a draft resolution expressing deep concern at his harsh treatment.

His testimony was interrupted several times by lengthy applause by the representatives of the council, which brings together the 46 signatory states of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Assange was fiercely critical of former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who he described as one of the “wolves in a MAGA hat”, referring to Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement. He said he read Pompeo’s memoirs where the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency had “bragged” about how he pressured the US attorney-general to bring an extradition case against him.

“My wife and my infant son were also targeted, a CIA asset was permanently assigned to track my wife, and instructions were given to obtain DNA from my six-month-old son’s nappy,” he said.

“The CIA’s targeting of myself, my family and my associates through aggressive, extrajudicial and extraterritorial means provides a rare insight into how powerful intelligence organisations engage in transnational repression. Such repressions are not unique.”

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