WikiLeaks founder Assange tells EU rights body he 'chose freedom over justice'
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has told the Council of Europe he was released after years of incarceration only because he pleaded guilty to doing 'journalism', warning that freedom of expression was now at a 'dark crossroads'.
Addressing the Council of Europe rights body at its Strasbourg headquarters – in his first public comments since his release in June – Assange said, "I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today after years of incarceration because I pleaded guilty to journalism."
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe had issued a report expressing alarm at Assange's treatment, saying it had a "chilling effect on human rights".
Julian Assange spent most of the last 14 years either holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid arrest, or locked up at Belmarsh Prison, south of London.
He was released under a plea bargain this summer, after serving a sentence for publishing hundreds of thousands of confidential US government documents.
The trove included searingly frank US State Department descriptions of foreign leaders, accounts of extrajudicial killings and intelligence gathering against allies.
Assange returned to Australia and since then had not publicly commented on his legal woes or his years behind bars.
Speaking calmly and flanked by his wife Stella, who fought for his release, he added,"Journalism is not a crime, it is a pillar of a free and informed society."
Assange's case remains deeply contentious.
Read more on RFI English
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