Julian Assange reunites with wife, family in Australia after being freed

How does it feel to be a free man? Mr Assange WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is now free after pleading guilty to violating the US Espionage Act. Assange pleaded guilty in court in the US Pacific island territory of Sipan. His release ends a 14-year legal saga. in which Assange spent more than 5 years in a high-security British prison and seven years in asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London fighting extradition to the United States, where he faced 18 criminal charges. It took people working behind the scenes, people protesting in the streets for days, weeks, months and years, and we did it.

Julián Julián wanted me to sincerely thank everyone. He wanted to be here, but you have to understand what he's been through. He needs the time he needs. to recover and this is a process I ask you to please give us space to give us privacy to find our place to let our

family

be a

family

before I can speak again at the time of my choosing it is important that journalists around the world understand A dangerous precedent that this accusation has set. An award-winning Australian journalist who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for these publications has spent over 5 years in a high security prison due to this US extradition request.

This is a great victory. for Australia and for Australian democracy this is a great victory for

freed

om of expression this is a great victory for Australia that our Prime Minister stood up to our ally the United States and demanded the return of an Australian citizen his arrival home ends to a long legal process uh, he described it as a surreal and happy moment. He's landing here in our Cambra national Capitol, which is the icing on a very, very beautiful birthday cake, you know, that Julian can come back to Australia and see his family regularly and do it. the ordinary things in life are a treasure, I mean life measured among the beauty of the ordinary is the essence of life, it's cold in the chamber, but I came to Brave the cold because Julian has been in prison for 5 years , so I plan to show support and do I'm sure when he got off the plane he saw that people were behind him and he had support.

I think it was important that a small group of people came here and greeted him when he got off the plane. Oh, that's great news. Obviously it's been too long. I feel like he's been held accountable for more and in hindsight he's been punished more than he needed to so you know it's great news for him, it's great news for his family, it's great news for all the fans in Australia . I think everyone wanted to see this and wanted to see it for a long time.