‘Enough’: How Australian diplomacy helped Assange regain his freedom

CANBERRA/SYDNEY/LONDON/WASHINGTON: Julian Assange was freed from prison by a court on the remote US Pacific territory of Saipan on Wednesday (June 26), ending a 14-year legal battle. The WikiLeaks founder’s lawyers began by thanking Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for making the outcome possible.

Assange’s Australian lawyer Jennifer Robinson said diplomacy and intensive lobbying with the highest US authorities played a key role in Assange walks freeHe had previously spent five years in a high-security prison in the UK and seven years hiding in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

“When Australian officials engaged the United States at every opportunity, they knew they were acting on the full authority of the prime minister of Australia,” Robinson told reporters outside the Saipan court.

However, on Wednesday, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the White House had nothing to do with the case of Assange, who was released from prison earlier this week.

“This is a matter for the Department of Justice and they are the only ones who can talk about it,” he told a briefing with reporters after Assange arrived in Australia and pleaded guilty to violating US espionage laws.

“Standing up for Australians around the world”

Australian Prime Minister Albanese said Assange’s release was a victory for Australia, which used its security ties with Washington and London to step up efforts to address the plight of its citizens.

“This work is complex and it’s been carefully considered. This is what it means to stand up for Australians around the world,” Albanese, leader of the centre-left Labor government, said in parliament on Wednesday.

Assange, who returned to Australia on Wednesday evening, was charged with 17 counts of violating the U.S. Espionage Act and one hacking-related charge and faced up to 175 years in prison. Under a deal disclosed on Tuesday, he pleaded guilty to one count of espionage and was released.

The deal has gained momentum as the United States faces growing challenges to the legality of extraditing Assange in Britain and as Australian lawmakers and diplomats pile pressure in Washington and London.

Changes in political will in 2023

A decade ago, under the Conservative government, there was little political will in Canberra to support Assange’s case. But that changed in 2023, when dozens of MPs from across the political spectrum backed the campaign to bring Assange back to the country, Assange’s father, John Shipton, told Reuters.

The shift culminated in a bill in Parliament in February calling for Assange’s release.

Shipton told Reuters the Australian government had “done an outstanding job” and praised Australia’s top envoys to the United States and Britain, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and former Defence Minister Stephen Smith.

Barnaby Joyce, an Australian Conservative MP and former deputy prime minister, was among a cross-party group of politicians who travelled to Washington in September to lobby for a solution.

Joyce said on Wednesday the visit showed Parliament that Australian politicians wanted to “get this done” because it distracted from Australia’s security alliance with the United States.

Greg Barns, a longtime lawyer who advised Assange’s Australian campaign, said American politicians saw in that visit that “this was not a partisan political issue.”

A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Assange’s first major break came in January 2021, when then-shadow attorney general Mark Dreyfus issued a statement calling for an end to the case against Assange after a British court ruled that his extradition to the United States would be unjust.

“This is the first indication that a major political party in Australia is supporting the cause of Assange’s release,” the official said.