Julian Assange finally arrives in Australia after being released in the UK

Julian Assange, creator of WikiLeaks, returned to Australia after being released by a US court after being in custody in the UK for almost 14 years in a high-security prison. His arrival occurred this Wednesday via a private flight.

The Australian programmer arrived at Canberra International Airport at 7:40 pm local time, after a seven-hour trip in Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands, where he appeared in a US court, which formalized his release.

“After almost 14 years of arbitrary detention in the United Kingdom and 5 years in a maximum security prison for his pioneering work, Julian Assange has returned home to Australia,” WikiLeaks noted through its X account.

Assange, who was received by his wife, Stella Assange, and their two children, plans to hold a press conference at a hotel in the Australian capital in the coming hours, which will be his first public appearance since he was released on Monday in the United Kingdom.

The 52-year-old Australian activist, journalist and hacker arrived in the midst of a hundred journalists who had gathered at the airport to cover his return.

Judge Ramona Villagomez accepted the terms of the agreement between the US Department of Justice and Assange’s defense, in which Assange pleaded guilty to conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US documents. Although the judge sentenced Assange to 62 months prison, recognized the time already served in the high-security Belmarsh prison in the United Kingdom, for which he was released.

Assange’s defense requested that the hearing be held in the Northern Mariana Islands due to its proximity to Australia and because Assange did not wish to travel to the continental United States.

Assange’s release comes after a long process that began in 2010 with the largest leak of classified documents in the history of the United States. Assange revealed attacks on civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the mistreatment of prisoners in Guantánamo, among other issues.

Following the controversial leak, Sweden issued an arrest warrant on charges of sexual abuse, which were later dropped. Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012, until he was arrested by British authorities in 2019, spending the last five years in a high-security prison.

With information from EFE