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Wednesday October 02, 2024
(LONDON) -- Julian Assange made his first public appearance since his release from prison, telling European lawmakers the United States had forced him to “plead guilty to journalism” to put an end to his years of captivity and that his case still set a dangerous precedent.
Assange addressed the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, an international rights body, in the French city of Strasbourg on Tuesday.
He said he had eventually chosen “freedom over unrealizable justice” in agreeing to the deal that allowed him to walk free after 14 years spent in detention.
“I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today after years of incarceration because I pled guilty to journalism,” Assange said at the hearing, which was broadcast live.
Assange was released from Britain’s Belmarsh prison in June and flown to a U.S.-district court on the Pacific island of Saipan after accepting the deal. There he pleaded guilty to conspiring to obtain and disclose classified U.S. documents and a judge sentenced him to 62 weeks in prison, the equivalent to his time spent in Belmarsh. The U.S. had been seeking to prosecute Assange on 18 counts under the Espionage Act.
The agreement ended the more than decade-long effort by the U.S. to prosecute Assange for his role in publishing thousands of classified materials, including diplomatic cables and some materials showing possible war crimes by American troops.
“I pled guilty to seeking information from a source. I pled guilty to obtaining information from a source and I pled guilty to informing the public what that information was. I did not plead guilty to anything else,” Assange said.
Assange was imprisoned in Belmarsh for five years while fighting extradition to the U.S. Prior to that, he spent seven years confined to the Ecuadorian embassy in London, facing arrest if he went outside.
“The experience of isolation for years in a small cell is difficult to convey,” Assange said on Tuesday. “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.”
Since his release, Assange has been living with his wife Stella and their two young sons in his native Australia.
“I think everyone can tell that he is exhausted, that he is still very much in the process of recovering,” Stella Assange told reporters at the hearing. “And at the moment, the only concrete plan in the foreseeable future is that he will continue his recovery.”
Assange and his supporters have warned that the plea deal still sets a dangerous precedent for media freedom, making him the first journalist to be convicted under the Espionage Act. At the hearing, Assange said he was precluded from seeking justice over his detention, saying the U.S. had required the plea agreement to include a prohibition on his filing cases at the European Court of Human Rights.
He and his team are campaigning for a U.S. presidential pardon.
Kristinn Hrafnsson, WikiLeaks’ editor-in-chief, who also attended Tuesday’s hearing, addressed the precedent of Assange's pardon with ABC News.
“You need to take away that dagger. It has now been bloodied once. And if there is no reaction and no push and no political desire to take that weapon out of any politician’s hand, it will be used again,” said Hrafnsson.
Asked if Assange had plans for work with WikiLeaks now that he was free, Hrafnsson said he had nothing to disclose for now.
“I'm certain there will be a role,” Hrafnsson said. “And of course there is a role for Julian. And of course there's a role for the recognition of the work and the past and the legacy of Julian Assange's and how he contributed in this massive manner to the history of journalism in this century.”
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(LONDON) -- As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visits the White House on Thursday, the Biden administration is facing frustration from other western allies over its refusal to let Ukraine use western long-range missiles to strike deeper inside Russia.
The request is a priority for Zelenskyy that he is pressing for this visit, but so far the administration has seemed unyielding in its opposition. That has prompted unusual public expressions of frustration in recent days from some NATO countries.
The prime minister of Denmark, which has been a significant supplier of military aid, this week at the U.N. General Assembly said the public discussion of “red lines” had been a “mistake," that is "simply giving the Russians too good a card in their hands."
"It would be really good to stop the delays. And I think that the restrictions on the use of weapons should be lifted," Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told Bloomberg in a television interview.
Britain and France have both indicated they are ready to allow Ukraine to use their own long-range cruise missiles that they have supplied to hit inside Russia, but want the U.S. to give approval.
U.S. officials have briefed two key reasons for opposing the decision, saying they are concerned it could prompt Russian President Vladimir Putin to further escalate and that the strikes would make insufficient difference to the war, meaning the risk of escalation isn’t worth the military payoff.
Ukraine and some of its other key allies strongly disagree, arguing Putin is bluffing.
Zelenskyy in an interview with ABC News' Robin Roberts for Good Morning America on Monday said Ukraine could use the missiles to hit airbases that Russia is using to drop hundreds of powerful bombs in eastern Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said he believed Britain, France, Germany and Italy were ready to allow the strikes but that the decision needed to come from the U.S.
"The main role is in the United States, in the president of United States, Biden. Everybody's looking up to him, and -- we need this to defend ourselves," said Zelenskyy.
Putin has turned to loud nuclear saber-rattling in an effort to deter the U.S. from accepting Ukraine’s request. The Russian leader on Wednesday announced changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine clearly directed at Ukraine and U.S. The changes said Russia will now treat aggression from non-nuclear states supported by nuclear powers as a "joint attack."
Putin’s loud threats suggest that the Kremlin at least does not agree with the U.S. assessment that allowing Ukraine to hit targets deeper inside Russia will make little difference to the war.
The U.S. has provided Ukraine with long-range missiles known as ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) that have a range of nearly 190 miles. Amid the debate over whether to let Ukraine use them deeper into Russian territory, Russia has moved back most of its aircraft to bases out of range of the missiles, reducing their potential effectiveness.
Germany, another key ally for Ukraine, though has expressed opposition to supplying its own long-range missiles, despite Ukraine's requests. Germany's leader Olaf Scholz this week again reiterated that refusal, saying it is “not compatible with my personal stance ... We will not do that.”
Some U.S. political figures have suggested Germany’s opposition is also a concern to the Biden administration.
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