Julian Assange has returned to his native Australia, after a plea deal allowed him to walk free from a London prison.
There were emotional scenes at Canberra airport, as the Wikileaks founder kissed his wife and hugged his father, while his lawyers looked on, visibly moved.
“Julian needs time to recover, to get used to freedom,” Stella Assange said at a news conference shortly after her husband’s arrival.
For the past 14 years, Assange has been in a legal battle with US officials who accused him of leaking classified documents that they say put lives in danger.
The 52-year-old did not attend the press conference in Canberra and let his lawyer and wife speak for him.
“You have to understand what he has been through,” Ms. Assange said, adding that they need time to “let our family be a family.”
The couple married at Belmarsh Prison in London in 2022 and have two children together.
In the plea agreement, Julian Assange pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information, instead of the 18 he originally faced.
The case centered on a massive Wikileaks disclosure in 2010, when the website published video from a US military helicopter showing civilians being killed in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
He also released thousands of confidential documents suggesting that the US military had killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents during the war in Afghanistan.
The revelations became big news, sparking reactions from all corners of the world and leading to intense scrutiny of American involvement in foreign conflicts.
Assange formally laid the charge in the remote Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific, two days after leaving Belmarsh prison.
In exchange, he was sentenced to the sentence already served and released to fly home.
His lawyer, Jen Robinson, told the media that the agreement amounted to a “criminalization of journalism” and set a “dangerous precedent.”
Echoing this, Ms Assange said she hopes the media “realises the danger of this” conviction for “gathering news and publishing information that was in the public interest”.
His lawyer also gave details about a phone call between Assange and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who has been instrumental in securing his release.
Assange told the prime minister that he “saved his life,” Robinson said, adding: “I don’t think that’s an exaggeration.”
“It is a great victory that Australia has stood up to an ally and demanded the return of an Australian citizen,” he said.
Albanese held his own news conference on Wednesday and said he is “very happy” the case is over, adding that the Wikileaks founder has been through a “considerable experience.”
The Prime Minister has said in the past that he does not agree with everything Assange has done, but “enough was enough” and it was time for him to be released, making the case a priority.
Asked whether the plea deal could affect US-Australia relations, he said: “We have a very positive relationship with the United States. I consider President Biden a friend, I consider their relationship to be absolutely central.”
Assange spent the last five years behind bars at London’s high-security Belmarsh prison, fighting US attempts to extradite him to face charges over leaked documents.
In 2010, he faced separate charges of rape and sexual assault in Sweden, which he denied. He spent seven years hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, claiming that the Swedish case would lead to him being sent to the United States.
Swedish authorities dropped that case in 2019, saying too much time had passed since the original complaint.
Women’s rights groups in Sweden say it’s a shame he never faced official questioning about the rape allegations.
“It is a chapter of shame and betrayal that ends with her release,” Clara Berglund, director of the Swedish Women’s Lobby, told the Reuters news agency.
“This is a case that takes place on major political stages, and men’s violence against women is given incredibly little attention.”