On 26 June, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange walked free from a US court on the Western Pacific island of Saipan, halfway between Japan to the north and Papua New Guinea to the south.
He had been released on bail from Belmarsh prison in London two days earlier as part of complicated plea deal negotiated by Australia, the US and Britain.
In Saipan, Assange pleaded guilty to one count of espionage and was given a sentence of ‘time served’, given his five years’ imprisonment in Belmarsh, a high-security prison.
The Saipan judge, Ramona Villagomez Manglona, said one factor swaying her to accept the sentence was that he had served his time in ‘apparently one of the harshest facilities in the United Kingdom’.
If she had given Assange a different sentence, the US government would have found a way for him still to fly home to Australia, according to the terms of its agreement with Australia and Assange.
While experts were divided, Sabrina Tucci, a spokesperson for PEN International, described Assange’s conviction for espionage on X/Twitter as ‘a dangerous precedent for press freedom worldwide and those who reveal state information’. PEN International is a global writers’ group fighting for freedom of expression.
Assange is now in Australia with his young family. His wife Stella said there would now be a campaign to win him a pardon in the US, to help protect journalists.