Julian Assange‘s wife has revealed that he wants to swim in the ocean every day and teach their young sons to catch crabs as he touched down in Australia as a free man.
The WikiLeaks founder brokered a plea deal with the United States which saw him convicted of espionage in return for his safe passage to his home country.
Mr Assange, 52, had been pursued by the US authorities for 14 years following the disclosure of thousands of classified military documents in 2010.
He spent more than five years in a British high-security prison after seven years holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.
During his captivity, he met his lawyer wife Stella, 40, who he fathered sons Gabriel and Max with in secret.
The couple kissed and shared a warm embrace upon his arrival at Canberra Airport shortly after 7.30pm on Wednesday night.
Mrs Assange appeared on The Project shortly before the emotional reunion.
She was quizzed about her husband’s newfound freedom and what his first words to her were.
‘That he missed me and he couldn’t wait to see me later tonight and all the things that we’re going to do over the next few days, weeks,’ Ms Assange told the program.
Julian Assange and his wife Stella embrace after he landed in Canberra around 7.30pm on Wednesday (pictured)
Mrs Assange said she ‘cried happy tears’ when her husband was released without probation or supervision from a US federal court on the Pacific island of Saipan
‘He wants to go swimming in the ocean every day and he wants to teach our children how to catch crabs… I think he wants to go to the beach,’ Mrs Assange told the program.
Mrs Assange said she ‘cried happy tears’ when her husband was released without probation or supervision from a US federal court on the Pacific island of Saipan.
‘It was a moment of release. I couldn’t quite believe it and I was also sad that I wasn’t there,’ she added.
The South African-born lawyer said she had been preparing her two young children for their father’s release.
‘I’ve been talking about the many things that we’ll do when he comes home,’ she said.
‘That we’ll go to Australia together and when we go to Australia, it will be when daddy is there. And the many, many places he wants to show them and things that we’ll do.’
Stella Assange (pictured) said she ‘cried happy tears’ when her husband was released without probation or supervision from a US federal court on the Pacific island of Saipan
Mr Assange, 52, is a free man after touching down in Canberra on Wednesday night
Julian Assange was on the phone with his wife an hour before he touched down in Australia
Mrs Assange said it would take time to get used to knowing one another in the free world after years of restrictions and captivity.
‘These kinds of restrictions, they really become internalised,’ she explained.
‘I think it will be quite a process and I’ve spoken to people who have been confined and their family members and so on, they all say the same thing.
‘You need space. You need time. You need to process things. Someone yesterday said freedom comes slowly.’
Mr Assange met his lawyer wife Stella, 40, during his captivity and he secretly fathered two children with her
Mrs Assange acknowledged that it may be ‘premature’ to talk about a pardon for her husband but she insisted that his conviction for espionage sets a dangerous precedent.
‘(It) has criminalised standard journalistic activity and it has set a precedent that will be able to be used in the future against other members of the press,’ she added.
As he saw his wife Stella for the first time, Assange hugged and kissed her before wrapping her in a tight embrace and lifting her up in the air.
Mrs Assange told reporters she needed to allow her husband space to rediscover freedom following his incarceration.
‘Julian needs time to recover. To get used to freedoms,’ she said.
His criminal conviction for espionage means he is now banned from entering the US.
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
Eight hours earlier Assange walked free from a US federal court on the Pacific island of Saipan without probation or supervision, but he is banned from ever entering the US again without permission from American authorities.
Judge Ramona V Manglona accepted his guilty plea and debated whether to fine Assange up to US$150,000 or order probation or supervised release.
After discussion with Assange’s lawyer Barry Pollack and US Attorney Matthew McKenzie, she decided against either and let him walk out a free man.
‘You will be able to walk out of this courtroom a free man. I hope there will be some peace restored,’ Manglona declared.
‘Given the factual basis that accounts the whole saga of events that constitutes the basis for this very serious espionage charge against you…I am in fact sentencing you to a period of time served,’ she said.
‘I am not imposing any period of supervised release.’
An emotional Assange could barely speak as he said ‘I do’ after being asked if he understood the details of the agreement.
As she wrapped up the case, the judge said: ‘With that… Mr Assange it’s apparently an early happy birthday to you. I hope you will start your new life in a positive manner.’
Assange had 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.
Ecuador eventually tired of him being there, revoked his asylum, and kicked him out – leading to his immediate arrest and imprisonment in the UK while he fought extradition to the US.
The US Government only counts the five years he spent in Belmarsh as being Assange’s time served, but his lawyer argued the whole 14 years counted.