The inside story of how Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was freed | 7.30

That's it, that's the plan, yeah, there it is. Julian Assange's return home was a long time coming. People close to him wondered if he would ever get out of prison. Can you describe the last 24 hours for us? It's hard to describe what we've been through. Waiting so long to reach an agreement between the US Department of Justice and the man they had been pursuing for years seemed impossible at times, it was incredibly difficult logistically politically and legally for the first time two of the people closest to those negotiations reveal crucial details about how the agreement was reached, the sticking points, the key players and how almost everything fell apart, none of us when we started this case thought it would end up in a court in the Pacific, the world in which we believe that justice would be served in 2019.

Julian Assange was arrested for breaching bail after Ecuador withdrew his asylum shortly after he was charged under the US Espionage Act for publishing classified military and diplomatic documents, as well like this infamous video showing journalists and civilians killed by US forces illuminate them all. fire in 2019, US under Trump administration sought Assange's extradition from UK Barry Pollock says US Justice Department was in no mood to negotiate after it became public that he had been charged with that his position was when he arrived in the United States. and has its initial appearance in the Eastern District of Virginia, we will talk to you after Joe Biden was elected president, Barry Pollock saw an opportunity to negotiate, Biden's Department of Justice had issued new guidelines on the prosecution of journalists and so I wanted to make a presentation.

For them, why did I think that under their new policy the prosecutor's office should not proceed with the list of departments, but they did not act, but in 2022, another election result helped change the game just over a month after their election. Anthony Albanesi made a sensible case to President Biden. In Madrid, about a year later, in London, the Prime Minister acknowledged that things were moving slowly. I know it's frustrating. I share the frustration. I can do nothing but make very clear where I stand and the US Administration is certainly very aware of that. what is the position of the Australian government, but behind the scenes there was movement Jen Robinson says the Prime Minister gave her important information he and I had a conversation in which he told me that they had been having conversations with the US Administration. and felt that there was a deal to be made, but it had to be made by Asus' lawyers.

Anthony Alban's new ambassador in Washington. Kevin Rudd was about to become a key player in the push to free Assange. I then flew to Washington to meet with Kevin Rud, our ambassador, and my US co-councilman Barry Pollock, where we briefed Ambassador R on the case and talked about what this was going to require. Kevin was very involved in this and worked very tenaciously with both the Department of Justice and me trying to push each side to come to a resolution that was acceptable to both of us and I think a lot of times when you have a complex negotiation like that, having a third party almost serving as a mediator to try to bring the two sides together is a huge help and Kevin played that role, but despite his efforts, negotiations stalled.

We worked on a deal for months that involved a series of misunderstandings about the mishandling of classified information that would have allowed us and him to file that plea remotely and return home to Australia, the Department of Justice. Then we stayed silent about it and heard nothing for months, but then a group of Australian politicians stopped the pressure. A cross-party MPS delegation visited Washington to meet with members of Congress and the Department of Justice. I think they made a difference. I think bipartisan support in Australia made a difference and I think the fact that Prime Minister Albanes spoke made a difference.

I think it was all of those things and the legal case that unfolded in the UK increased the pressure on the US. Jul Assange in February Julian Assange applied for permission to appeal to the high court in London, but it was seen as his last role of dice within the UK legal system to avoid extradition, but it was also Dice's last role for the United States and as published in internal emails. in the Washington Post show that his own lawyers were worried that one of his trial lawyers would write that the case will be appealed and we will lose.

They knew that the United States could not guarantee protection of Assange's free speech under the First Amendment, a guarantee that the UK judges were asking for. I think they were under pressure on two fronts: First, there was a very real possibility that we would win the Expedition case on this First Amendment ground because, in our view, the United States could not provide a satisfactory guarantee of protection under the First Amendment, but The other point that people also overlook is that the United States was, I think, concerned about his extradition and having a very public prosecution of a journalist under the Espionage Act in an election year, at a time when that one of its journalists is imprisoned in Russia precisely on espionage charges.

You have an American journalist imprisoned in Russia, Evan Gurovich, and the United States is trying to negotiate his release and what's the first thing the Russian government is going to tell you? Look what you're doing to Julian Assange in the run-up to the hearings Jen Robinson says she called Australian Attorney General Mark Draus and alerted him to weaknesses in the US case after my conversations with our Attorney General Mark Draus in January, he went to meet with Attorney General Merrick in the United States and I think that was It is important to make the Australian Government's position clear and also make the points we had made: this extradition case may be lost and this is the time to close the deal.

In May, two High Court judges ruled that Julian Assange could appeal on First Amendment grounds further pressure the United States to reach a settlement. We really had two lines in the sand, so to speak, one was that if we were going to come to any negotiated resolution, that had to be the end, huh. Julian was not going to serve any additional prison sentences, the second was that Julian was very adamant that he did not want to come to the United States for fear that if he did, he would be arrested on other charges that the United States insisted on. . over a felony charge that meant a Sange would have to appear in a US court.

The solution of holding proceedings in a US Commonwealth in the Pacific was a proposal by the Department of Justice. I think when it became clear to them that we were not going to move forward with them, they came up with a very creative proposal that met our needs and that is what led to its resolution. Negotiations over an agreed statement of facts took time as the party AR Ed on particular points. I think it's really important to highlight. for people, what is not in the plea agreement and that statement of facts and why it is important, the first is that no real harm was caused to any individual and the US government could not identify an individual who would be entitled to restitution as a result of these publications.

The second point. that's really important is that after years of accusing him of hacking, to somehow do something different than journalism, if you read that statement of facts, it's about receiving and publishing information from a source that is absolutely journalistic activity since the Department of Justice pleaded guilty. statement saying that Assange's decision to reveal the names of human sources illegally shared with him created a serious and imminent risk to human life about a week before his release, the parties finally reached an agreement on a plea deal until that the final details were negotiated and both parties were ready to sign a paper.

You never knew what it felt like to be a free man. Mr. Assan, we are still assuming that we made it through and that he is home. He has been a long time coming.