Wednesday briefing: Julian Assange is finally free – but it is far from the end of the story
Good morning.
After 12 years of confinement, seven in the Ecuadorian embassy and five in a high-security prison in south London, Julian Assange has been freed. The WikiLeaks founder, who faced 18 charges for helping and encouraging Chelsea Manning to leak military files, has pleaded guilty to one criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence, as part of a plea deal struck with the US justice department. Assange was sentenced by Judge Ramona V Manglona to time served on the island of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands and is now on a flight back to Australia. The US ambassador to Australia, Caroline Kennedy, said his return “brings this longstanding and difficult case to a close”. Assange’s wife said she is “elated” at the news of her husbands’ release.
It is the latest twist in the story of Assange, who spent years leaking documents that exposed government and military secrets, as well as less obvious targets like the actor Wesley Snipes, the Church of Scientology and the Church of the Latter-day Saints.
For today’s newsletter I spoke with writer and journalist Duncan Campbell about the final chapter of his legal drama. That’s right after the headlines.
Five big stories
General election 2024 | A Conservative politician has become the fifth party figure to be investigated by the gambling watchdog for allegedly placing a suspicious bet on the general election date. The Gambling Commission has informed Russell George, a Tory member of the Welsh parliament that he is part of its inquiry.
Health | The NHS is having to provide emergency care to rising numbers of patients suffering serious complications after weight loss surgery and hair transplants abroad amid a “boom” in medical tourism, doctors have warned. Britons are returning with infections and in some cases patients are dying as a result of botched surgeries.
Social media | Nigel Farage is outperforming all other parties and candidates on TikTok throughout the general election campaign, analysis shows, eclipsing politicians considered most popular among young people.
South Korea | Takeoffs and landings at the Incheon international airport have been disrupted for about three hours because of balloons launched by North Korea filled with refuse, an airport spokesperson said. North Korea has said the balloons are retaliation for a propaganda campaign by defectors from the North and activists in the South who regularly send over balloons carrying food, medicine, money and leaflets criticising the North’s leaders.
Democratic Republic of the Congo | A dangerous strain of mpox that is killing children and causing miscarriages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the most transmissible yet and could spread internationally, scientists have warned.
In depth: ‘It’s good news for Assange … but not particularly good news for journalism’
Julian Assange, who was an expert hacker by the age of 16, has always had a bit of a rebel streak. In the late 80s he was accused of stealing half a million Australian dollars from Citibank.
But it was the website WikiLeaks that brought him to international attention. Major news outlets including the Guardian published leaks about Guantanamo Bay and classified Pentagon documents in collaboration with Assange. And in 2010 (when the picture above was taken) WikiLeaks published a video titled “Collateral Murder”, showing two US helicopter gunships in Iraq shooting Iraqi Reuters journalists. That devastating footage was followed by the publication of hundreds of thousands of documents, many in collaboration with numerous mainstream media outlets from the wars in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, and Democratic party operatives in the run up to the 2016 election.
What followed were claims of dealings with Russian intelligence services, allegations of sexual assault in Sweden – which were ultimately dropped – and relentless calls for his imprisonment and even execution by US politicians. For years, prosecutors in America grappled with how to get a hold of Assange and prosecute him – the impulse to squash Assange became so strong that in 2017 senior CIA officials reportedly discussed plans to kidnap or assassinate him.
Journalists, human rights groups and press freedom organisations have been criticising the US for years, arguing that the pursuit of Assange represents a huge assault on freedom of expression. Amnesty International said prosecution could have a chilling effect on journalists who might self-censor for fear of punishment.
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Years of pursuit
In 2010, the Swedish authorities put out an arrest warrant for Assange over separate allegations of rape and molestation – Assange has always denied the allegations. To avoid extradition, Assange requested political asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012, stating his fear that he would be sent to the US through Sweden, where he could face a lifetime in prison or death. His claim was granted and specific diplomatic laws protected him from arrest in the UK, as long as he stayed inside the building, which is where he remained for seven years. During this time he was visited by a host of celebrities – Lady Gaga, John Cusack and Pamela Anderson among them. He was also visited by Nigel Farage, in secret, on a number of occasions.
In 2017, Sweden dropped its allegations stating that “at this point, all possibilities to conduct the investigation are exhausted”. Eventually Ecuador rescinded its asylum offer, paving the way for Assange to be arrested and sent to Belmarsh prison where he has been held ever since.
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Why has he been released?
After so long avoiding extradition, his supporters and loved ones will no doubt be relieved at the end to this saga. It makes sense that he accepted the deal, Campbell says, “given the appalling conditions that he’s been held in, the fact that he has been deprived of seeing his two small children and wife for five years, often left in a cell for 23 hours a day. I think it’s shocking that the United States have insisted on that when he has not breached the Espionage Act.” His family have also said that his physical and mental health were deteriorating for a number of years.
For the US, and Joe Biden’s administration, it makes sense to wrap things up. In April Biden said that he was “considering” dropping the charges and extradition attempt against Assange, avoiding the complications and potential loss of a court case in the UK that could drag on through the most crucial part of the election race. Pursuing the charges against Assange was becoming damaging for Biden when a big part of his platform this campaign has been about providing a guard-rail against Donald Trump’s attacks on democracy and freedom of speech.
The quiet but forceful diplomatic pressure from Australia has also played a significant role in securing the release of Assange. Australian politicians have long expressed their opposition to the extradition charge and lobbied for a plea deal.
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Press freedom
As noted by Trevor Timm, a plea deal is less troubling than a conviction and appeals court ruling, which could have created an official precedent that potentially binds other courts to rule against journalists in future cases. But he adds that it is certainly not the best case scenario for press freedom.
Campbell echoes this sentiment. “It’s good news for Assange and his family, but it’s not particularly good news for journalism as a whole,” he says. “It still means that the US believes that if a journalist, who is not American or in the United States, publishes damaging information about them they can issue an extradition order and seek to have people from different countries stand trial in America.”
The criminalisation of Assange’s conduct through a guilty plea of the Espionage Act before a potential Trump presidency is particularly troubling given that Trump has repeatedly suggested that he would use the courts to retaliate against the media. In his opinion piece, Campbell notes that all over the world, journalists are facing unprecedented threats to their safety.
“From Haiti to Hong Kong, from Russia to Saudi Arabia, journalists are faced with pressures similar to those placed on Assange. That specious argument that Assange was ‘not really a journalist’, and thus not worthy of media support can surely now be finally buried.” Assange may be free, and Campbell understands why he has accepted the deal after so long behind bars, but “the situation for journalists is not great right now and the decision to release Assange doesn’t make it much better”.
What else we’ve been reading
As Aida Edemariam found out while writing her long read, libraries have become a sanctuary for many in the UK as poverty, addiction and social degradation have become commonplace. Raphael Boyd, newsletters team
Germany has been dealing with the dire state of its public toilets head on and the results are already promising. Sophie Wilkinson asks why Britain isn’t following suit. Nimo
According to the committee to protect journalists, at least 103 Palestinian journalists have died in the Gaza war. Compared to other estimates, those numbers are conservative. The Guardian looks at why so many who should be exempt from the violence are being caught in the crosshairs, and whether they are merely getting caught in friendly fire or have a target painted on their back. Raphael
Daniel Dylan Wray has interviewed the Zawose Queens, a Tanzanian band that were once sidelined and who are now taking the centre stage at one of the biggest and most famous festivals in the world. Nimo
In 2009, a quarter of Britain’s rivers were judged to be in a good state; cut to 2022, and not a single one was judged to be clean or free of pollution. In the latest addition to our broken years series, Sandra Laville looks at how our rivers have become overrun with pollution. Raphael
Sport
Euro 2024 | Gareth Southgate has talked about being in “an unusual environment” after having plastic beer cups thrown at him by England fans and hearing his team booed off after their 0-0 draw with Slovenia. Although a point was enough for England to go through to last 16 as winners of Group C, fans have accused the team of another ineffective attacking display against opponents ranked 57th in the world.
Tennis | Emma Raducanu delighted the Eastbourne crowd by dispatching Sloane Stephens in straight sets in the first round of the Rothesay International. The 21-year-old Briton on Monday declared herself back in love with the sport after a torrid time with injuries. She delivered in style on her maiden outing at Devonshire Park, producing a string of eye-catching winners to triumph 6-4 6-0 in a big-hitting battle of former US Open champions.
Cricket | Division One leaders Surrey remained on course to win their fifth Vitality County Championship match of the season despite prolonged resistance from Worcestershire’s Gareth Roderick and Kashif Ali on day three at New Road.
The front pages
The Guardian leads with “Fifth Tory faces investigation as election betting scandal grows”. The Telegraph reports “Cabinet minister claimed he won £2k on election bet”. The Financial Times says “Labour dragged into betting scandal after candidate backs himself to lose”, while the Times has the same story with “Labour man suspended for betting on election”.
The Mail has an “exclusive interview” with the Labour leader, under the headline “Starmer: Mail readers were right about Labour in 2019…that’s why we’ve changed”. The Mirror leads with a new pledge from Labour: “We’ll end 8am GP scramble”.
Today in Focus
A win for Julian Assange and a loss for press freedom?
After years in ferocious pursuit, the US has finally agreed to a plea deal with the WikiLeaks founder. But there are fears it may set a dangerous precedent. Julian Borger reports.
Cartoon of the day | Martin Rowson
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
A “miracle birth” has taken place in a Brazilian zoo, as a seemingly male Brazilian rainbow boa has given birth to 14 snakelets. When the baby serpents were found in the vivarium of the snake, named Ronaldo, zookeepers were shocked by the discovery. Had they misidentified Ronaldo, or had a miracle indeed occurred? The answer, it turns out, was both more straightforward yet far stranger. Ronaldo was indeed female, but had not been in contact with any males for close to a decade.
The birth was the result of parthenogenesis, a form of asexual reproduction in which embryos can occur from an unfertilised egg, with this being only the third occurrence to be documented in a captive Brazilian rainbow boa anywhere in the world.
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Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.
