Topline
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said he was forced to choose freedom over justice while addressing European lawmakers Tuesday in his first public remarks since agreeing to a plea deal with the U.S. government earlier this year to end his nearly decade-long legal battle to avoid extradition to the country over the publication classified military documents.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaks at the Autumn Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the … [+]
Key Facts
Addressing the human rights committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Assange said: “I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today [after] years of incarceration because I pled guilty to journalism… I pled guilty to informing the public.”
The Wikileaks founder said he agreed to a plea deal as he “eventually chose freedom over an unrealizable justice” adding that laws that should have protected him “only existed on paper” and were not effective in any “remotely reasonable time.”
Assange noted that his plea agreement with the U.S. government prevents him from filing a case on the matter at the European Court of Human Rights or making a “Freedom of Information Act request” on the impact of the extradition request against him.
The Wikileaks founder said he hopes his testimony can “serve to highlight the weakness, the weaknesses of the existing safeguards, and to help those whose cases are less visible.”
Assange’s address also raised alarm about the state of press freedom around the world saying: “I see more impunity, more secrecy, more retaliation for telling the truth and more self-censorship.”
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Crucial Quote
“It is hard not to draw a line from the US government’s prosecution of me, its crossing the Rubicon by internationally criminalizing journalism to the chilled climate for freedom of expression that exists now,” Assange said.
Tangent
Assange attacked both the Obama administration and the Trump administration for their efforts to target him. He criticized the 2010 arrest of one of Wikileaks’ whistleblowers, U.S. Army soldier Chelsea Manning, and alleged the U.S. government bribed one of his informers to “steal our legal and journalistic work product.” Assange said this “harassment” of him and his colleagues was groundless as “ President Obama’s justice department chose not to indict me, recognizing that no crime had been committed.” Addressing Trump’s term, Assange called two of his appointees, former CIA Director Mike Pompeo and former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, as “two wolves in MAGA hats.” Assange accused Pompeo of launching a “campaign of retribution” and drawing up plans to assassinate him after Wikileaks “exposed the CIA’s infiltration of French political parties” in 2017.
