• Assange to be tried and freed as US part of a plea deal that seeks his past incarceration to be classed as part of time served already.
• US conceding defeat on Assange case leaves questions on whether justice for brothers and sisters in the Middle East is now possible.
Julian Assange is on the verge of achieving full freedom from the long arm of the West’s oppressive laws.
After spending 1901 days in Belmarsh maximum security prison, he was granted bail by the High Court in London on the morning of the 24th and then released at Stansted airport during the afternoon to board a plane and depart the UK.
Wiki Leaks released a statement on X which read:
“This is the result of a global campaign that spanned grass-roots organisers, press freedom campaigners, legislators and leaders from across the political spectrum, all the way to the United Nations.
This created the space for a long period of negotiations with the US Department of Justice, leading to a deal that has not yet been formally finalised. We will provide more information as soon as possible.
After more than five years in a 2x3 metre cell, isolated 23 hours a day, he will soon reunite with his wife Stella Assange, and their children, who have only known their father from behind bars.
WikiLeaks published groundbreaking stories of government corruption and human rights abuses, holding the powerful accountable for their actions.
As editor-in-chief, Julian paid severely for these principles, and for the people's right to know. As he returns to Australia, we thank all who stood by us, fought for us, and remained utterly committed in the fight for his freedom. Julian's freedom is our freedom.”
Plea Deal and Next Steps for Assange
As part of attaining his freedom, Assange is to enter a guilty plea in a deal with the US Justice Department for releasing classified documents that vilified the US and humanised the victims of their butchery and genocide.
He will appear in the federal court in the Mariana Islands on Wednesday morning, a US commonwealth in the Western Pacific. It is there that Assange will plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defence information.
Assange would now avoid imprisonment in the US. Prosecutors will seek a 62-month sentence – the same amount of time he’d already served in Belmarsh high-security prison, London, while fighting extradition, owing to the threats upon his life precipitated by the U.S.
Why These Documents Matter
The documents that led to the charges against Assange in the US, stem from one of the largest publications of classified information in American history. As yet there are no further details on the plea deal have been revealed such as whether Assange has been ‘gagged’ from discussing any further war crimes previously led by the West.
Assange brought to light military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. 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.
What took place across many Middle Eastern countries was suppressed and had it not been for Assange’s journalistic integrity and need to publish the truth, the public would never have known the actual scale of devastation and mass murder of innocent civilians committed by the US and the countries who supported them in the genocide.
The documents were shared online on Assange’s WikiLeaks website where the leaks occurred from around 2009 to 2011. What is most poignant is that they also included unfiltered US diplomatic cables that potentially endangered confidential sources, Iraq war-related significant activity reports and information related to Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Chelsea Manning who leaked the classified US documents to Assange was sentenced to 35 years in prison after being convicted of violating the Espionage Act and other offenses for leaking classified government and military documents to WikiLeaks. President Obama commuted her sentence in 2017, allowing her release after about seven years behind bars.
What does this mean for the victims oppressed by the West?
The US is already being actively challenged in the courts by individuals who have laid claims of torture against them and won using Assange’s leaked documents.
One such individual is Khalid El-Masri. He was one of several people who came forward and won the first-ever case against the CIA. Khalid stated in court on September 17 2020 that, “WikiLeaks publications were relied on by the European Human Rights Court (ECHR) in obtaining the redress,” meaning the documents carried weight and were deemed credible enough for him to seek reparations for his physical and mental sufferings at the hands of Macedonian and CIA operatives along with an official apology.
Another victim who is well-known in London is Moazzam Begg who has faced many forms of torture and unjustness at the hands of the West. Begg was arrested in 2002 whilst in Pakistan for having alleged links to Al-Qaeda, though he was living and staying with his family after having fled Afghanistan. He was then unlawfully detained in Guantanamo Bay at the hands of the US without trial for three years before his release was arranged. Compensation of sorts was supposedly agreed upon but never publicised.
As the leaked US documents carried information on Guantanamo Bay, it could be said that the information available could have gone some way to support any legal claim for someone like Begg. Had he wished to place a lawsuit against the US with the ECHR for the inhumane practices they endorsed when torturing civilians (who they claimed were terrorists), based on recent rulings it would be highly likely that a judgement would be found in Begg’s favour.
With the US conceding to Assange, it raises more questions about their practices of diplomacy and democracy. It also strengthens the validity of the evidence obtained and the little room they now have to deny evidence presented to them. The fault lies with the US for their oppressive attacks in the Middle East.
There is no hiding from the ‘court of public opinion’ but now, if further claims are brought against the US there will be no hiding in actual courts either. This decision to publicly secede also affects those states that endorse and adopt the way the US ‘shoots first and asks questions later’. One such so-called state comes to mind.
One can assume that letting Assange go is an easy win, as the atrocities against the Iraqis and Afghans were not at the hands of Biden’s administration. This situation has been more of a distraction for Biden so it would have been easier to pass the blame on to Bush and move on so that he could continue his support for the Israelis’ attacks on Palestine.
