NICE, France (AP) – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Tuesday that he has been released after years in prison because he has “pleaded guilty to journalism.”
Assange has given evidence on the impact of his detention and conviction to the Legal and Human Rights Committee of the Council of Europe Parliament in Strasbourg, France. The parliament includes members from 46 European countries.
Assange was released in June after serving five years in a British prison after pleading guilty to obtaining and disclosing U.S. military secrets, ending a long legal battle with prosecutors at the Department of Justice. Before going to prison, he applied for asylum on the grounds of political persecution and lived in self-imposed exile at the Ecuadorian embassy in London for seven years.
“Today I am not free because the system worked,” Assange said in his first public appearance since his release. “I pled guilty to journalism and was released today after many years in prison.”
He added: “I pled guilty to soliciting information from a source. I pled guilty to obtaining information from a source. And I pled guilty to informing the public what that information was. Pleaded guilty.”
Mr Assange said the transition from years of confinement in a maximum-security prison to addressing MEPs was a “deep and surreal change”, adding that he had spent years in a small solitary confinement cell. He spoke in detail about his experience of isolation.
“It strips away one's sense of self and leaves only the raw essence of being,” he said, his voice rising as he apologized for his “sluggish language” and “unpolished presentation.”
“I am not yet ready to talk about what I have endured, the constant struggle to stay alive, both physically and mentally,” Assange said.
An Australian internet publisher has been accused of receiving and publishing hundreds of thousands of war records and diplomatic cables containing details of US military misconduct in Iraq and Afghanistan. His work was praised by press freedom advocates, who touted his role in bringing to light military actions that might otherwise have been covered up.
Among the files released by WikiLeaks was a video of a 2007 attack by U.S. Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters reporters.
Critics say his actions endangered U.S. national security and innocent lives, including those who provided information to U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and went far outside the scope of traditional journalistic missions. claims to be doing so.
The years-long lawsuit ended with Assange's argument in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Pacific Ocean.
Assange pleaded guilty to espionage charges for conspiring to illegally obtain and disseminate classified national defense information. The judge sentenced him to five years in prison, which he had already spent behind bars in the United Kingdom as he seeks extradition to the United States.
Mr Assange returned to Australia as a free man at the end of June. At the time, his wife Stella said he needed time to recover before speaking publicly.
His appearance on Tuesday came after the Council of Europe parliament released a report into Mr Assange's five-year detention in a maximum security prison in the UK.
Parliament's human rights committee issued a draft resolution stating that Assange is a political prisoner and expressing deep concern over his harsh treatment.
