The Australian Julien Assangewho has kept a low profile since his return to his native country as a free man on June 26, will break his silence on Tuesday in Strasbourg before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, after being released under an agreement which ended a long conflicting legal battle.
Among the few things we know about the WikiLeaks founder’s life at large since his arrival in Australia is that he spent time walking in the forest or on the beach and with his family.
Since then, His wife, Spanish-Swedish Stella Assange, has only published two photos of herself with her husband in the south of the country. in which they appear embracing, as well as another recent one of the couple smiling with their two children, aged 7 and 5, on an Australian beach.
It was Stella Assange who spoke upon her husband’s arrival in Australia on June 26, saying he needed “time and recovery” to “get used to freedom” before “talking to new “.
Just over three months later, Assange will speak this Tuesday at the European organization’s headquarters in Strasbourg, France, and on Wednesday, parliamentary representatives from the 46 member countries will debate a resolution on the consequences of his case for humanity. rights, according to inform Efe.
IMPORTANT: Julian will be in Strasbourg next week on October 1st. This will be an exceptional break in his recovery because @COE Julian was invited to give evidence for the JUR committee report into his case and its wider implications. Read the press release:
–Stella Assange (@Stella_Assange) September 24, 2024
The 53-year-old Australian’s trip to Strasbourg only represents “a rare break in his (process) of convalescence”Stella Assange remarked in a post last week on X.
“This visit represents Assange’s first official testimony on his case since before his imprisonment in 2019,” WikiLeaks recalled when announcing the appearance of its founder in a press release last week, referring to the statements he had to make in the part of the process of his arrest. extradition planned to the United States (USA).
The last interviews offered by Julian Assange date back to 2018when he spoke to various media, including Australian ones, from the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
For their part, newspapers Age And Sydney Morning Herald Earlier this month, they published a photo of Assange with a platinum beard, like his signature hair color, with his father, octogenarian John Shipton, in a suburb of the city of Melbourne, where he is believed to reside. .
His brother Gabriel Assange, as well as supporters of the activist and former hacker, are leading a campaign to ask the American government to grant him a pardon.
The saga began with WikiLeaks’ leak in 2010 of tens of thousands of secret documents. or sensitive content about the United States in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as on the Guantanamo base, one of the largest leaks of classified information in the history of the North American country.
Initially detained in 2010 at the request of Sweden for a now closed case, Assange was a refugee at the Ecuadorian embassy in London from June 19, 2012 until his deportation and detention in the United Kingdom in April 2019 at the request of the United States. which triggered the legal proceedings.
The Australian has spent the last five years in London’s high security Belmarsh prison. amid a complex extradition process to the United States, which charges him with 18 crimes for violating the U.S. Espionage Act, equivalent to 175 years in prison.
Assange’s freedom was possible after a deal with the US Department of Justice in which he pleaded guilty to violating the Espionage Act, which involved a 62-month prison sentence offset by time already served. to Belmarsh in exchange for the opportunity to return. in Australia.
