Washington says it puts people “at risk”

Nearly fifteen years after the start of this legal saga, Julian Assange is finally free. The United States accused him on Wednesday of putting people “at risk” by publishing secret documents through WikiLeaks in the 2000s.

“The disclosed documents provide identifying information about individuals in contact with the State Department, including opposition leaders and human rights activists around the world, whose situations have been jeopardized by their public disclosure,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

“It also hampered the ability of US personnel to establish relationships and have frank conversations,” he stressed, while the revelations in particular showed that the United States was extensively spying on its allies and that some US operations led to the deaths of innocent people.

A champion of free speech for some

Earlier today, Julian Assange, 52, was released after a speedy hearing in the US Federal Court in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands. He returned to Australia, his country of origin. Under the agreement, the former computer scientist pleaded guilty to obtaining and disclosing national defense information.

He was pursued by US justice because he had published more than 700,000 classified documents on US military and diplomatic activities, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, since 2010. Julian Assange is considered a champion of freedom of expression by his supporters, but his critics accuse him of releasing large amounts of government documents without any filtering.

At the time, Matthew Miller confirmed that the State Department “had to do everything we could to keep people out of danger,” but he could not provide details. A US diplomatic spokesman declined to comment on the Justice Agreement itself or the negotiations with Australia, particularly those that enabled the resolution of this nearly 14-year-old legal saga.