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Julian Assange

FBI Sued For Withholding Files On Assange And WikiLeaks

September 13, 2024 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. , , ,
The civil liberties organization Defending Rights and Dissent sued the FBI and United States Justice Department for withholding records on WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange. “For nearly a decade and a half, we’ve been trying to get at the truth about the U.S. government’s war on WikiLeaks,” declared Chip Gibbons, the policy director for Defending Rights and Dissent. Gibbons added, “With the legal persecution of Julian Assange finally over, the FBI must come clean to the American people.” On June 25, 2024, U.S. government attorneys submitted a plea agreement [PDF] in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands after Assange agreed to plead guilty to one conspiracy charge under the U.S. Espionage Act.

US Won’t Comply With Investigation Into CIA Operation Targeting Assange

August 1, 2024 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. , , ,
The United States government notified a Spanish criminal court that it still will not comply with requests from Spanish investigators, who are trying to uncover details about an espionage operation that targeted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. As the Spanish newspaper El País reported on July 29, Courtney E. Lee, a trial attorney in the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, claimed that providing information to Spain’s national high court would “interfere” with “ongoing U.S. litigation.” Assange was the target of an unprecedented political prosecution that was globally condemned as a threat to press freedom. The case ended in a plea deal in late June after U.S. prosecutors feared that Assange might win his appeal against extradition.

Assange’s Case Shows Why Reforming The Espionage Act Is Imperative

July 12, 2024 Chip Gibbons, The Nation. , , , , ,
On June 25, 2024, the 14-year persecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange came to an end. As part of a plea deal, the journalist pleaded guilty to violating the Espionage Act. In exchange, he received time served for the five years he spent in a British maximum-security prison while fighting his extradition. Although Assange walked out of the courthouse a free man, his freedom came after paying an extraordinary harsh price. Officially, Assange’s crime was “conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information.” According to the plea deal, Assange helped to set up WikiLeaks, which announced that it would publish “classified, censored, or otherwise restricted information of political, diplomatic, or ethical significance.”

Julian Assange Freed By The Prospect Of Justice

July 7, 2024 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
The sudden announcement that Julian Assange would be freed after a plea agreement came as a great and very welcome surprise. Assange and the Wikileaks team were targets of United States persecution and prosecution by three different presidential administrations because they revealed secrets that the state wanted to keep hidden. Wikileaks revealed war crimes committed during the George W. Bush administration in their Iraq War Logs and Afghanistan War Logs. Private Chelsea Manning leaked the Collateral Murder video, which shows the deaths of civilians, including two Reuters reporters, as they were gunned down by a U.S. army helicopter crew in 2007.

The Media Kept Assange Behind Bars

July 1, 2024 Jonathan Cook, Consortium News. , , ,
It is only right that we all take a moment to celebrate the victory of Julian Assange’s release from 14 years of detention, in varying forms, to be united, finally, with his wife and children — two boys who have been denied the chance to ever properly know their father. His last five years were spent in Belmarsh high-security prison as the United States sought to extradite him to face a 175-year jail sentence for publishing details of its state crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. For seven years before that he was confined to a small room in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, after Quito awarded him political asylum to evade the clutches of a law-breaking U.S. empire determined to make an example of him.

Julian Assange Is Finally Free; Let’s Not Forget The War Crimes He Exposed

June 29, 2024 Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. , , ,
After a 14-year struggle, including five years spent in Belmarsh, a maximum-security prison in London, WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange is finally free. Under the terms of a plea deal with the U.S. Department of Justice, Assange pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to obtain documents, writings and notes connected with the national defense under the Espionage Act. Assange was facing 175 years in prison for 18 charges in the indictment filed by the Trump administration and pursued by the Biden administration. The Justice Department agreed to the plea bargain a little over a month after the High Court of England and Wales ruled that Assange would be allowed to appeal an extradition order.

Assange Agreed To Destroy Unpublished Classified Material

June 28, 2024 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , ,
The 23-page plea deal between Julian Assange and the United States government that freed Assange this week contains a provision that he agree to return or destroy all unpublished  U.S. material still in WikiLeaks‘ possession. The agreement says on Page 29: “Before his plea is entered in Court, the Defendant shall take all action within his control to cause the return to the United States or the destruction of any such unpublished information in his possession, custody, or control, or that of WikiLeaks or any affiliate of WikiLeaks. The Defendant further agrees that, if the forgoing obligation requires him to instruct the editor(s) of WikiLeaks to destroy any such information or otherwise cause it to be destroyed, he shall provide the United States (or cause to be provided to the United States) a sworn affidavit confirming the instruction he provided and that, he will, in good faith, seek to facilitate compliance with that instruction prior to sentencing.”

Assange: I Broke The Law But The Law Is Wrong

June 27, 2024 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , ,
Before Federal Judge Ramona Manglona on Wednesday at the court in Saipan, capital of the Northern Marianas, Assange pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiracy to obtain defense information, a violation of the U.S. Espionage Act. “With this pronouncement, it appears that you will be able to walk out of this courtroom a free man,” the judge said. According to an account by Dow Jones news service in The Australian, Mangola asked Assange what he had done to violate the law. “Working as a journalist, I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified,” Assange replied. “I believed the First Amendment protected that activity, but I accept that it was a violation of the espionage statute.”

You Saved Julian Assange

June 26, 2024 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. , , , ,
The dark machinery of empire, whose mendacity and savagery Julian Assange exposed to the world, spent 14 years trying to destroy him. They cut him off from his funding, canceling his bank accounts and credit cards. They invented bogus allegations of sexual assault to get him extradited to Sweden, where he would then be shipped to the U.S. They trapped him in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for seven years after he was given political asylum and Ecuadorian citizenship by refusing him safe passage to Heathrow Airport. They orchestrated a change of government in Ecuador that saw him stripped of his asylum, harassed and humiliated by a pliant embassy staff.

Experts Warn Julian Assange Plea Deal Could Set Dangerous Precedent

June 26, 2024 Alexandra Topping, The Guardian. , , ,
The next UK government must push the US for reassurance it will not pursue journalists for publishing classified information, human rights organisations and experts have argued after the release of Julian Assange. Experts have warned that the plea deal struck between the WikiLeaks founder and the US authorities – which will see him plead guilty to one charge under the Espionage Act, but avoid serving any additional time in custody – could set a dangerous precedent. Assange, who has battled his extradition to the US since WikiLeaks published more than 250,000 leaked classified military and diplomatic documents in 2010, was facing up to 175 years in prison on 18 counts.

Julian Assange Is Finally Free

June 25, 2024 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , , ,
Julian Assange has agreed to a plea deal with the United States. He left Belmarsh on Monday and is headed to Australia, WikiLeaks said. “He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK,” WikiLeaks said in a tweet early Tuesday morning London time. Stella Assange, tweeted: “Julian is free!!!! Words cannot express our immense gratitude to YOU- yes YOU, who have all mobilised for years and years to make this come true. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.” Assange was released as a result of a plea deal with the United States, the BBC reported.

Julian Assange Is Free, But Government Still Abused The Espionage Act

June 24, 2024 Defending Rights and Dissent. , , ,
Defending Rights & Dissent welcomes the news that Julian Assange will go free for the first time in over a decade. For over five years, Assange has been confined to Belmarsh Prison in London, as he contested his extradition to the US. Prior to that, Assange spent seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy under what a United Nations Work Group deemed to be arbitrary detention.  On Monday, it was announced that Assange had filed a guilty plea in the US District of Northern Mariana Islands. Assange, who faced 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one count of conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud And Abuse Act, pled guilty to single count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense Information in violation of the Espionage Act.

Judges Named For Assange Appeal

June 14, 2024 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , , , ,
The judges in Julian Assange’s two-day appeal hearing on July 9-10 are the same who granted Assange a rare victory last month:  his right to appeal the Home Office’s extradition order to the United States. Justices Jeremy Johnson and Victoria Sharp granted Assange the right to appeal on only two of nine requested grounds, but they are significant: 1) his extradition was incompatible with his free speech rights enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights; and 2) that he might be prejudiced because of his nationality (not being given 1st Amendment protection as a non-American).

IBAHRI Urges Joe Biden To Drop All Charges Against Julian Assange

June 9, 2024 International Bar Association. , , , , , , , , , ,
The International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) urges United States President Joe Biden, to drop all charges against Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in relation to the Wikileaks publication, in 2010, of more than 250,000 leaked classified documents – exposing alleged human rights abuses allegedly perpetrated by the US army during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. It was reported in April 2024 that the US President said ‘we’re considering it’ in response to a journalist’s question about a request from the Australian Government that Mr Assange be allowed to return to his native country.

Victory For Assange, First Amendment, UK Court Grants Right To Appeal

May 30, 2024 Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. , , , ,
On May 20, a two-judge panel of the High Court of England and Wales handed WikiLeaks founder and publisher Julian Assange a significant victory. Justice Jeremy Johnson and Dame Victoria Sharp granted him leave to appeal the U.K.’s extradition order on two grounds. The High Court will now schedule a hearing at which Assange will be allowed to argue that his rights to freedom of expression and to be free from discrimination based on his nationality would not be protected if he were extradited to the United States. In the U.K., the right to appeal is not automatic. While they didn’t rule on the merits of Assange’s claims, Johnson and Sharp determined that the two issues have sufficient legal merit to be reviewed by the High Court.
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