Julian Assange, a renowned advocate for free speech, has spoken publicly for the first time since his release from a British prison, where he had been held for over a decade due to persecution by the US government. During his address, Assange detailed how the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) not only planned to kidnap and kill him but also stalked his family in an effort to silence him.
On Tuesday, October 1, Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, appeared before the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France. This marked his first public appearance since his release in June, following his guilty plea to one count of conspiracy. In exchange, the US Department of Justice agreed not to pursue additional charges, and Assange was sentenced to time served. According to the Spanish news agency EFE, Assange emphasized that he is being punished for practicing journalism, saying:
“I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today after years of incarceration because I pleaded guilty to journalism.”
Australian news outlet SBS News shared the full video of Assange’s address to the Council of Europe.
In his statement, Assange revealed the CIA’s intimidation tactics against him, a topic that has been covered by independent journalists like Tucker Carlson. Assange claimed that, under the direction of then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo, the agency orchestrated a plan to kidnap and assassinate him while he was residing in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Assange also disclosed that the CIA targeted his wife and young son, including an order to collect DNA from his six-month-old child.
Assange first became the focus of US intelligence agencies in 2010 after WikiLeaks published damning information about war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush and Obama administrations, information that came to light through the Chelsea Manning leaks. The US government accused Assange of illegally obtaining the classified information, amounting to espionage.
However, the controversy surrounding Assange extends beyond these military revelations. In the lead-up to the 2016 US presidential election, WikiLeaks released emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) that exposed how party officials had manipulated the primary process in favor of Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. These leaks contributed to the resignation of then-DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
In 2022, users began experiencing difficulties accessing the DNC documents on WikiLeaks, sparking rumors that the pages had been removed as part of Assange’s plea agreement. Though fact-checkers later dismissed these rumors, attributing the issue to technical glitches, the matter has yet to be fully resolved.
Following Assange’s testimony last week in Strasbourg, the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) officially recognized him as a political prisoner. According to a report by JURISTnews on October 3, PACE urged the Biden administration to investigate the war crimes and human rights abuses revealed by WikiLeaks and criticized the British government for failing to protect Assange’s rights.
