{"id":8551,"date":"2024-10-01T15:07:33","date_gmt":"2024-10-01T15:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/01\/julian-assange-says-he-pleaded-guilty-to-journalism-to-secure-his-freedom-in-first-public-remarks-since-leaving-prison\/"},"modified":"2024-10-01T15:07:33","modified_gmt":"2024-10-01T15:07:33","slug":"julian-assange-says-he-pleaded-guilty-to-journalism-to-secure-his-freedom-in-first-public-remarks-since-leaving-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/01\/julian-assange-says-he-pleaded-guilty-to-journalism-to-secure-his-freedom-in-first-public-remarks-since-leaving-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"Julian Assange says he pleaded \u2018guilty to journalism\u2019 to secure his freedom in first public remarks since leaving prison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/clxvnpu24000mxqp9fbob077h@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">            WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has made his first public remarks since his release after he struck a deal with the United States, saying he is free because he pleaded \u201cguilty to journalism.\u201d    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cm1hj25yu00003b6kpvu3lwhn@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">            The 53-year-old on Tuesday traveled to the French city of Strasbourg to appear before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and provide evidence on his detention and conviction, and on their effects on human rights.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cm1q50wgm000s3b6k58qwvegh@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">            \u201cI want to be totally clear: I am not free today because the system worked,\u201d Assange told lawmakers. \u201cI am free today after years of incarceration because I pled guilty to journalism.\u201d    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cm1q5xuh900003b6khrenzj6x@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">            Assange was released in June after agreeing to&nbsp;plead guilty to a single felony charge&nbsp;in exchange for time served. The deal was finalized in a remote US court in the Pacific before he flew on to his native Australia.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cm1q68k7600073b6ky2sqv0lu@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">            He had been locked up in London\u2019s high-security Belmarsh prison for five years and sought refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in the British capital for nearly seven years before that, in a bid to avoid potentially spending the rest of his life behind bars.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cm1q5y65j00023b6kexnepn3j@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">            Before his deal with the US Justice Department, the Australian had been facing 18 criminal charges related to his organization\u2019s dissemination of classified material and diplomatic cables, and a 175-year jail sentence.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cm1q63bah00053b6kunagpavt@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">            Assange, accompanied by his wife Stella and WikiLeaks editor-in-chief&nbsp;Kristinn Hrafnsson, appeared calm and at ease during his roughly 20-minute statement on Tuesday.    <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<div>This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has made his first public remarks since his release after he&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8552,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}