“I Chose Freedom Over Justice,” Julian Assange States in First Comments After Detention, By Reuters

By Tilman Blasshofer and Tassilo Hummel

STRASBOURG (France) – Julian Assange, the founder of the whistleblower media organization WikiLeaks, addressed European lawmakers on Tuesday, stating that his guilty plea to U.S. espionage charges was necessary due to the inadequacy of legal and political attempts to secure his freedom.

"I eventually chose freedom over an unrealisable justice," Assange remarked, marking his first public comments since his release from prison during a committee session at the Council of Europe, which is recognized for its focus on human rights.

Assange, 53, returned to his home country of Australia in June following an agreement for his release that involved him pleading guilty to violating U.S. espionage laws, concluding a 14-year legal battle in Britain.

"I am free today after years of incarceration because I pleaded guilty to journalism, pleaded guilty to seeking information from a source, I pleaded guilty to obtaining information from a source and I pleaded guilty to informing the public what that information was," he stated.

In 2010, WikiLeaks published hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. military documents detailing American involvement in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, marking one of the largest security breaches in U.S. military history. Subsequently, Assange was indicted under the Espionage Act.

A report from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe characterized Assange as a political prisoner and called for an investigation into the conditions he faced during his detention.

Dressed in a black suit with a burgundy tie, and sporting a slight white beard, Assange read aloud from prepared remarks, flanked by his wife Stella and WikiLeaks’ editor Kristinn Hrafnsson. He expressed that he was not yet ready to discuss the full extent of his experiences, admitting, "Isolation has taken its toll which I am trying to unwind."

During a subsequent question and answer session, Assange expressed his emotional response to the plea deal, noting that it would prevent him from ever presenting a defense against the U.S. accusations of espionage. "There will never be a hearing into what happened," he declared.

His wife, whom he married while imprisoned in London, mentioned last month that he would require time to recover his health and stability following his lengthy confinement.

When asked about his future plans, Assange described the Strasbourg hearing, which aimed to highlight the importance of protecting whistleblowers and informers, as "a first step."

He acknowledged that reintegrating into normal life after years of imprisonment presented challenges, such as learning to be a father to two children who grew up without him and "becoming a husband again, including with a mother-in-law," eliciting laughter from the audience.

Assange’s legal troubles began in 2010 when he was arrested in Britain based on a European arrest warrant from Swedish authorities who sought to question him over allegations of sexual misconduct, which were eventually dropped. He sought asylum in Ecuador’s embassy, where he remained for seven years to avoid extradition to Sweden. In 2019, he was apprehended from the embassy and placed in London’s high-security Belmarsh prison for violating bail conditions.