Julian Assange’s spouse Stella manufacturers US spying case ‘outrageous’

The wife of Julian Assange has branded the US spy case against the WikiLeaks founder as ‘outrageous’ after he was released from Belmarsh Prison on Monday.

Stella Assange said it has been a ‘whirlwind of emotions’ but that she is ‘elated’ that her husband could walk free after reaching a plea deal with US authorities over the spy charges that have dogged him for more than a decade.

WikiLeaks published footage of Assange, 52, being driven from Belmarsh jail in London, where he has been detained for five years, to Stansted Airport on Monday. He then boarded a private jet that landed in Bangkok, Thailand to refuel.

In the coming hours, he is expected to plead guilty to a single espionage charge in a court appearance on a tiny US-controlled Pacific island and prosecutors will seek a sentence equivalent to time served.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4 Today, Stella – who revealed that her husband has been in a ‘terrible state for five years’ – said: ‘He will be a free man once it has signed off by a judge and that will be some time tomorrow.’

She added: ‘It’s a whirlwind of emotions, I’m just elated frankly, it’s just incredible. It feels like it’s not real.

‘As his wife and all of our family, the priority has always been that Julian should be able to free to regain his freedom.

‘He has been in Belmarsh Prison for over five years in relation to this outrageous case which is criminalising the publication and disclosure of information that incriminates states.’ 

Assange has been a wanted man since 2010 when WikiLeaks released hundreds of thousands of classified US military documents on Washington’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – the largest security breaches of their kind in US military history – along with swathes of diplomatic cables.

In 2012, as authorities circled him for that and over ‘credible and reliable’ sex crime allegations from a woman in Sweden, he fled into London’s Ecuadorian embassy where he remained for seven years in often farcical circumstances.

After falling out with the South American nation’s rulers he was dragged out of his bolthole in 2019 and locked up in Belmarsh while the US attempted to extradite him.

But that legal process ended abruptly yesterday, and WikiLeaks broke the news with a post on X reading: ‘Julian Assange is free!’ 

In a pre-recorded video filmed outside Belmarsh prison, Stella and WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said: ‘If you’re seeing this, it means he is out.’

The group said: ‘After more than five years in a 2×3 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.’

Assange married Stella, a South African-born lawyer who he met when she joined his legal team in 2011, while locked up in Belmarsh in 2022.

The couple have two children together, conceived while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy. On Tuesday morning, Stella shared an image on X of her husband video-calling her from Stansted airport on Monday.

Asked about the conversations that led to his release, Stella said on Radio 4: ‘Well, it’s been so touch and go, we weren’t really sure until the last 24 hours that it was actually happening.

‘We were talking about – I don’t know what he needed to do and take from his cell and I also had to pack things up, and head out to Australia 24 hours before he left. So it’s just been non-stop for the past, I think, 72 hours. 

‘What there is an agreement in principle between Julian and the Department of Justice and that has to be signed off by a judge in these Northern Mariana Islands… where he is currently heading… he is in Bangkok for a layover.

‘Once the judge signs off on it, it is formally real. I’m also a bit limited as to what I can say right now about the agreement in principle.’

She confirmed the ‘charge concerns the espionage act and obtaining and disclosing national defence information’, adding: ‘The important thing is the deal involves time served. If he signed it, he will be able to walk [free].’

Stella continued: ‘The deal itself will be made public and I think it’s a very interesting deal. I can’t talk about it in detail, I certainly have views about the deal but I don’t want to jeopardise anything.’

She said that she took a flight to Sydney with their two children on Sunday – but that she has not told them about their father’s possible freedom yet.

Stella said she has told them they are going to visit family, adding: ‘We’ve been very careful because no one can stop a five and seven-year-old from shouting it from the rooftops at any given moment.

‘Because of the sensitivity of the judge  having to sign off the deal, we have been very careful, just gradually telling them information. They are very excited to be in Australia though.’

Stella said that she and Assange have not had the opportunity to speak about the future yet.

But she revealed: ‘The priority is for Julian to get healthy again. He has been in a terrible state for five years.

‘Just to be in contact with nature, that’s what we both desire for now. To have time and privacy, and start this new chapter.’

Choking back tears, she said: ‘It’s always been quite extraordinary, but I am just so emotional now. This is finally over.’

Last night she posted on X: ‘Julian is free!!!! Words cannot express our immense gratitude to YOU – yes YOU, who have all mobilised for years and years to make this come true. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.’ 

Meanwhile, WikiLeaks editor Mr Hrafnsson also spoke of his huge relief that Julian Assange has left prison after a lengthy campaign to gain his freedom.

He was one of the last people to visit Assange in Belmarsh prison in London earlier this month before the dramatic development.

He said that the campaign had gathered momentum in recent weeks following the growing involvement of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

The outcome of a High Court decision in May allowing the WikiLeaks founder to appeal against being extradited to the United States was also ‘tremendously important’, he said.

He told PA: ‘This is the result of a long, long process which has been going on for some time. It has been a tough battle, but the focus now is on Julian being reunited with his family.

‘The most important thing is that Julian is free and he is finally able to enjoy the big blue sky. Details of what will happen now will come out in the next 24 hours.

‘His family will be waiting for him in Australia.’

Reacting to the plea deal, Alexander Downer, the former foreign secretary of Australia, told BBC Radio 4 Today on Tuesday morning: ‘This is an appropriate way, I think, for it to be brought to an end. 

‘The plea bargain is such that Julian Assange has admitted his guilt in this case to conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information, which is an extremely serious offence.’

The former high commissioner to the UK added: ‘I don’t think we should walk past the fact that this is a very serious charge he’s admitted to so in that sense it’s no doubt appropriate.

‘He’s admitted his guilt now… that’s part of the plea bargain. So the fact is we can now satisfactorily say he was guilty of a very serious offence.’

When asked about how some people will give him a heroes welcome in Australia, he responded: ‘Most people don’t in Australia [think that he fought to get the truth as a journalist]. A tiny minority of very vocal people see that he was a journalist, their claim is… that he was just reporting information. But he has been found guilty of a much more serious offence than that. 

‘And I think most people in Australia would agree that it’s not appropriate to steal national security information and publish it. 

‘Governments have to have some degree of privacy in their communications… and by the way, he didn’t just release information relating to Iraq and Afghanistan… but he released a huge amount of information, much of which was very embarrassing and some of which endangered lives. 

‘So what he did was a criminal offence and it was a terrible thing to do morally as well, endangering people’s lives in that way, is just completely inappropriate. I don’t think many Australians have sympathy for him, no. Just because he was Australian doesn’t mean he’s a good bloke.’

The Assange circus is now expected to shift to the tiny US-controlled Pacific island of Saipan, 1,500 miles east of the Philippines, where Assange is listed to appear in court at 9am local time on Wednesday (12am London, 7pm Tuesday in New York, 9am Wednesday in Sydney).

Matthew McKenzie, deputy chief of counterintelligence and export control at the US Department of Justice, and Shawn Anderson, the US Attorney for the Districts of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, said they expected Assange to return to Australia after the proceedings have concluded.

A plane matching the one Assange was purportedly seen flying out on is heading to Bangkok. 

Assange’s family and friends welcomed his release this morning.

His mother Christine Assange said: ‘I am grateful that my son’s ordeal is finally coming to an end. This shows the importance and power of quiet diplomacy. Many have used my son’s situation to push their own agendas, so I am grateful to those unseen, hard-working people who put Julian’s welfare first.’

His father John Shipton added: ‘It looks as though Julian will be free to come back to Australia. My thanks and congratulations to all his supporters… that have made that possible, and of course, the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese.’

Mr Shipton said he was ‘energised’ by the news.

‘I don’t fade easily, you know. And neither does Julian. It must be a family trait,’ he said.

The plea deal emerged yesterday when US prosecutors filed criminal paperwork against him in the US Commonwealth of the North Mariana Islands in the western Pacific Ocean.

The filing says Assange has agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents.

In the agreement, prosecutors will look for a 62-month sentence – the same amount of time Assange has served in Belmarsh high-security prison while fighting extradition to the US.

The plea deal still needs to be rubber-stamped by a federal judge – but if approved, it would give him credit for time served.

He would then be officially released from US custody and would be able to make the 3,500-mile journey south to Sydney.

In recent months, President Joe Biden had hinted at a possible deal being pushed by officials in the Australian government to return Assange to back to his homeland.

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese today said there was ‘nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration and we want him [brought] home to Australia’.

He added: ‘I have been a very clear… that regardless of the views that people have about Julian Assange and his activities, the case has dragged on for too long’.

An Australian government spokesperson said: ‘Prime Minister Albanese has been clear – Mr Assange’s case has dragged on for too long and there is nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration.’

MailOnline has contacted the embassies in London for the US, Sweden, Ecuador and Australia for comment on Assange’s release.

Assange had faced 18 counts from a 2019 indictment for his role in the WikiLeaks data breach. It carried a maximum of up to 175 years in prison, though he was unlikely to be sentenced to that time in full.

Assange was indicted during former President Donald Trump’s administration over the mass release of secret US documents, which were leaked by Chelsea Manning, a former US military intelligence analyst who was also prosecuted under the Espionage Act.

Officials in the US had alleged that Assange goaded Manning into obtaining thousands of pages of unfiltered US diplomatic cables.

US prosecutors claimed that the cables were not only embarrassing but more importantly potentially endangered confidential sources. Many contained top secret information regarding Iraq war-related activity reports and information related to detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.

The trove of more than 700,000 documents included diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts such as a 2007 video of a US Apache helicopter firing at suspected insurgents in Iraq, killing a dozen people including two Reuters journalists in a video that was released in 2010.

The charges against Assange sparked outrage among his many global supporters who have long argued that Assange as the publisher of Wikileaks should not face charges typically used against federal government employees who steal or leak information.

Many press freedom advocates have argued that criminally charging Assange represents a threat to free speech.

But is was for alleged sex crimes that he was first arrested, in Britain in 2010. Officials in Sweden obtained a European arrest warrant after two women accused him of offences, one of rape and one of molestation, following a speaking trip to the country.

Assange spent years fighting against extradition to Sweden.  His supporters alleged the allegations were drummed up to enable his detention so he could be extradited to America over the leaks. 

So in 2012 when his final appeals were exhausted, instead of fighting to clear his name, he breached his UK bail and fled into London’s Ecuadorian embassy to seek asylum.

He stayed there for seven years, until Sweden dropped the rape charge against him.

Swedish prosecutors said in 2019: ‘The reason for this decision is that the evidence has weakened considerably due to the long period of time that has elapsed since the events in question.’

Eva-Maria Persson, the deputy director of public prosecution at the time, said: ‘I would like to emphasise that the injured party has submitted a credible and reliable version of events.

‘Her statements have been coherent, extensive and detailed; however, my overall assessment is that the evidential situation has been weakened to such an extent that that there is no longer any reason to continue the investigation.’

Assange was eventually forced to leave the embassy after relations between him and officials broke down, with one even accusing him of smearing faeces on the walls – a claim which was stringently denied by his supporters.

His team alleged that throughout his time at the embassy, he was subjected to inhumane conditions.

Dr. Sondra Crosby, an associate professor of medicine and public health at Boston University and an expert on the physical and psychological impact of torture, was tasked with assessing Assange in 2018.

According to the Intercept, she wrote in an affidavit she gave to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights:

‘Mr. Assange’s situation [inside the embassy] differs from a typical prisoner in a conventional prison.

‘In fact, his position is worse than a conventional prison in many respects. His confinement is indefinite and uncertain, which increases chronic stress and its myriad of chronic physical and serious psychological risks, including suicide.’

Despite the allegations of horrific treatment at the hands of the Ecuadorian embassy, he was dragged out by the Met Police in 2019 during Operation Pelican, and jailed for skipping bail.

But at the same time, US authorities were indicting him over the WikiLeaks data breaches.