Julian Assange has returned to his native Australia after a plea deal allowed him to walk free from a London prison.
There were emotional scenes at Canberra airport as the Wikileaks founder kissed his wife and hugged his father as his lawyers looked on, visibly moved.
“Julian needs time to recover and get used to freedom,” Stella Assange said at a news conference shortly after her husband arrived.
For the past fourteen years, Assange has been embroiled in a legal battle with US officials who accused him of leaking classified documents that they say endangered lives.
The 52-year-old did not attend the press conference in Canberra, instead allowing his lawyer and wife to speak on his behalf.
“You have to understand what he went through,” Ms. Assange said, adding that they need time for “our family to be a family.”
The couple married in London's Belmarsh prison in 2022 and have two children together.
The plea deal saw Julian Assange plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information, instead of the 18 he originally faced.
The case revolved around a massive exposé by Wikileaks in 2010, when the website published a video from a US military helicopter showing civilians being killed in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.
It also published thousands of confidential documents showing that the US military had killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents during the war in Afghanistan.
The revelations became a huge story, sparking reactions from all corners of the world and leading to intense scrutiny of American involvement in foreign conflicts.
Assange laid the official charges in the remote Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific Ocean, two days after leaving Belmarsh prison.
In return, he was sentenced to a prison sentence he had already served and was released to fly home.
His lawyer, Jen Robinson, told media the deal was a “criminalization of journalism” and set a “dangerous precedent.”
Following this, Assange said she hopes the media “are aware of the danger of this American case against Julian, which criminalizes him, which secured his conviction for gathering news and publishing information that was true, that public deserved to know.”
His lawyer also provided details of a phone call between Assange and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, which was instrumental in securing his release.
Assange told the prime minister that he had “saved his life,” according to Robinson. “I don't think that's an exaggeration.”
“This is a huge victory as Australia stood up to an ally and demanded the return of an Australian citizen,” she said.
Albanese held his own news conference on Wednesday and said he is “very happy” the case is over. He added that the Wikileaks founder has endured a “significant ordeal.”
The prime minister has said many times in the past that he does not agree with everything Assange has done, but that “enough was enough” and it was time to release him. The case was given priority.
When asked if the plea deal could affect US-Australia relations, he said: “We have a very positive relationship with the United States. I consider President Biden a friend, I consider their relationship absolutely central.”
The US State Department said its involvement in Assange's case was very limited. It added that the 52-year-old's actions had endangered the lives of US partners, allies and diplomats, and that Wikileaks' publications had “chilled” the ability of US diplomats to build relationships abroad.
Assange spent the past five years behind bars in London's high-security Belmarsh prison, fighting US attempts to extradite him and face charges over document leaks.
In 2010, he faced separate charges of rape and sexual assault in Sweden, which he denied. He spent seven years in hiding in Ecuador's embassy in London, claiming the Swedish case would lead to him being sent to the US.
Swedish authorities dropped the case in 2019. According to them, too much time had passed since the original complaint.
Women's rights groups in Sweden say it is a shame he was never officially questioned about the rape allegations.
“It is a chapter full of shame and betrayal that ends with his release,” Clara Berglund, head of the Swedish Women's Lobby, told Reuters.
“This is about an issue that is playing out on the big political stages, and men's violence against women is given incredibly little weight.”
