WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange landed in his home country of Australia and embraced his wife as a free man after pleading guilty to conspiracy in a US court deal.
Assange touched down in the Australian capital of Canberra at 7.37pm, according to flight-tracking platform Flighradar24, where he was greeted by his wife Stella who passionately embraced him. His father John Shipton was also there to greet his son as the pair hugged.
WikiLeaks posted an image of Assange looking out the plane window with the caption: "Touchdown! After enduring nearly 14 years of arbitrary detention in the UK, 5 years in maximum security prison, for his groundbreaking publishing work with WikiLeaks, Julian Assange has arrived on Australian soil. Free at last."
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The pair embraced after he landed (AFP via Getty Images)Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told journalists he called Assange as soon as he touched down. "I was pleased to speak with him", he said. "Immediately upon the wheels touching the ground., I was quite pleased to be the first person here who he spoke with, which was, uh, mutually worked out that would occur."
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Mr Albanse said Assange described his landing in Australia as "surreal" and a "happy moment."
He added: "There was no purpose to be served by this ongoing incarceration. And can I say that when I spoke with Mr Assange tonight, he described it as a surreal and happy moment. He’s landing here in our national capital, Canberra."
Assange raised his right fist as he emerged for the plane and his supporters at the Canberra airport cheered from a distance. Dressed in the same suit and tie he wore during his earlier court appearance, he embraced his wife Stella Assange, and father John Shipton who were waiting on the tarmac.
Assange is now a free man (AFP via Getty Images)He was accompanied on the flights by Australian Ambassador to the United States Kevin Rudd and High Commissioner to the United Kingdom Stephen Smith, both of whom played key roles in negotiating his freedom with London and Washington.
During a press conference just hours after Assange landed, his wife Stella admitted she couldn't put into words how much it meant seeing her husband again. However, she has pleaded for privacy.
She said: "We embraced and I mean, I think you’ve seen the pictures. I don’t want to express in words what is obvious from the image.
"Julian needs time to recover. To get used to freedoms. Someone told me yesterday who had been through something similar, that freedom comes slowly. And I want Julian to have that space to rediscover freedom, slowly. And quickly."
Stella refused to comment on whether her husband will speak to the media but she has requested he is pardoned. "That precedent now can and will be used in the future against the rest of the press", she said. "So it is in the interest of all of the press to seek for this current state of affairs to change through reform of the Espionage Act. Through increased press protections, and yes, eventually when time comes - not today - a pardon."
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange greet his father John Shipton (AFP via Getty Images)The 52-year-old flew on a private plane to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth north of Guam, where on Wednesday morning he pleaded guilty under the U.S. Espionage Act to a single criminal count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information.
The American commonwealth in the Pacific is relatively close to Assange’s native Australia and accommodated his desire to avoid entering the continental United States.
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Assange was accused of receiving and publishing hundreds of thousands of war logs and diplomatic cables that included details of U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
His guilty plea was the final chapter in a legal saga that began more than a decade ago, when he published a trove of classified documents that embarrassed several governments and which the U.S. government says threatened national security and aided adversaries.
His activities drew an outpouring of support from press freedom advocates, who heralded his role in bringing to light military conduct that might otherwise have been concealed from view and warned of a chilling effect on journalists. Among the files published by WikiLeaks was a video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.
Julian Assange arrives at Canberra Airport (Getty Images)Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told Parliament that Assange’s freedom, after he spent five years in a British prison fighting extradition to the U.S., was the result of his government’s “careful, patient and determined work.”
“Over the two years since we took office, my government has engaged and advocated including at leader-level to resolve this. We have used all appropriate channels,” Albanese said.
Assange’s lawyer Jennifer Robinson, speaking outside the Saipan court, thanked Albanese “for his statesmanship, his principled leadership and his diplomacy, which made this outcome possible.”
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