Julian Assange has landed in his home country of Australia. After 14 years of legal proceedings, the WikiLeaks founder is a free man, since he pleaded guilty to spreading military secrets in an agreement with the USA.
Now he needs time to get used to freedom, says his wife.
In a shaky video clip, Julian Assange is seen hugging and kissing his wife Stella Assange shortly after landing in Canberra. He then walks up to a fence and raises his arms in a victory gesture towards supporters and reporters gathered at the airport. A crowd is heard cheering, applauding, and shouting "welcome home".
A short while later, at a press conference, a visibly moved Stella Assange thanks, on her husband's behalf, everyone who contributed to his release.
He wanted to be here, but you must understand what he has gone through. He needs time, he must recover. It's a process, she says, and asks for respect for the family's privacy.
Julian should never have spent a single day in prison, but today we celebrate – for today Julian is free, she adds.
"Can't stop crying"
The 52-year-old, accused of espionage, stood before an American court on the island of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands on Tuesday, Swedish time.
In court, he pleaded guilty, under a single charge, to having received and disseminated classified national defence information in an "unlawful conspiracy".
He simultaneously stressed that he believes the espionage law conflicts with the constitutionally protected right to freedom of expression. Assange was subsequently sentenced to five years and two months in prison, which corresponds to the time he has already spent imprisoned in the UK. Thus, he is a free man.
Seven years at the embassy
Extensive diplomatic efforts have been behind the agreement with the USA, according to the country's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
This is not something that has happened in the last 24 hours. It's something that has been carefully considered and patiently worked through, he says, and continues:
Regardless of what you think about Assange's activities, his case has dragged on for far too long.
The USA has wanted to extradite Assange to put him on trial in an American court. The espionage and data breach charges relate to Assange's role in the 2010 leak of around 700,000 classified documents related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The 52-year-old has been imprisoned in Belmarsh Prison in London since April 2019. He was arrested after spending seven years at the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden, due to allegations of sexual offences during a visit to Stockholm.
The Swedish investigation was dropped in 2019.
Julian Assange was born in 1971 in Townsville, Australia.
As a teenager, he became known as a hacker under the name Mendax. He and others then broke into the Pentagon's and NASA's computer systems.
In 2006, he co-founded WikiLeaks, a website where large leaks could be submitted and published. Among the hundreds of thousands of classified documents that were subsequently made public were evidence of American war crimes and human rights abuses.
His supporters see him as a freedom of expression champion, while critics point out that the publications he has made have endangered the USA's security.
Julian Assange married Stella Moris (born Sara Gonzalez Devant, now Stella Assange) in 2022, whom he met during house arrest in the UK. The couple has two sons, born in 2017 and 2019.
