Tomás Ó Flatharta

The remote Pacific Ocean island of Saipan suddenly hit Irish and global headlines in 2002 when Irish soccer star Roy Keane walked away from the Irish team’s base for the World Cup in Korea and Japan after a blazing row with his manager Mick McCarthy. Today the island is back in the headlines after the political prisoner Julian Assange walked to freedom following a court hearing in the USA-owned North Marinara territory. Like Keane, Assange did not linger in Saipan – he flew home to his native land, Australia.

That is not the only Irish connection. Many innocent Irish political prisoners were held, like Assange, in noxious British jails such as Belmarsh. A small number of dedicated human rights lawyers became household names in Ireland. The picture below shows the released Julian Assange beside one of those lawyers, Gareth Pierce.

The campaigns for the release of the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four, the Winchester Three and Judith Ward offer an important lesson :

When the left should get together in defence of political prisoners, it is very often a serious mistake to conduct a debate about the political views and activities of the prisoners. In Ireland that was true of the Birmingham 6, the H-Block/Armagh political prisoners, Nicky Kelly and the IRSP members framed for the Sallins Train Robbery, and the Jobstown Not Guilty political activists in Tallaght. Many comrades would be well advised to go back further and examine the Sacco and Vanzetti campaign in the 1920’s, and the Moscow Trial Purges of the 1930’s. The faults (or lack of faults) of the victims are regularly used as an excuse to avoid a united campaign in favour of the victims. The bigger story is that “An Injury to One is An Injury to All”.

This type of political activity is best described as “punching down” or “victim blaming”. At present, this writer does his best to promote the cause of solidarity with Ukraine – and has lost track of the number of times many comrades on the left use the excuse that the Ukrainian government led by Volodymyr Zelensky has right-wing politics – which they think excuses them from a moral duty : to practice political solidarity against the Russian imperialist, ethnic cleansing, invasion of Ukraine.

We can be sure Julian Assange has political views many of us do not share, and has done things which many people cannot condone. But, and it is a huge BUT, he exposed monstrous USA war crimes and has been punished more than enough.

John Meehan June 26 2024

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It is anticipated the WikiLeaks founder will plead guilty to violating US espionage law at a hearing in Saipan and will be allowed to return to Australia

Julian Assange has been released from a British prison and is expected to plead guilty to violating US espionage law, in a deal that would allow him to return home to his native Australia.

Assange, 52, agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents, according to filings in the US district court for the Northern Mariana Islands.

Wikileaks posted on social media a video of its founder boarding a flight at London’s Stansted airport on Monday evening and Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese confirmed he had left the UK. The plane – chartered flight VJT199 – later landed in Bangkok for refuelling, officials at the Thai airport said.

A filing from the US Department of Justice to the US district court describes a plea deal regarding Julian Assange Photograph: US Department Of Justice/Reuters

Assange is reportedly travelling to a hearing on the island of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, where he will be sentenced at 9am local time on Wednesday (11pm GMT on Tuesday). According to Albanese, he is being accompanied by Australia’s high commissioner to the UK, Stephen Smith.

“Regardless of the views that people have about Julian Assange and his activities, the case has dragged on for too long, there is nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration and we want him brought home to Australia,” Albanese said on Tuesday.

Under the deal, which must be approved by a judge, Assange is likely to be credited for the five years he has already served and face no new jail time.

In a letter to a federal judge in the district court for the Northern Mariana Islands, a senior justice department official said that he was being sent to Saipan because of its “proximity to the defendant’s country of citizenship”. The official added that once the sentencing hearing was completed, Assange was expected to travel on to Australia.

WikiLeaks said on X that Assange had left Belmarsh prison on Monday morning, after 1,901 days of captivity there. He had spent the time, the organisation said, “in a 2×3 metre cell, isolated 23 hours a day”.

Assange was set to be reunited with his wife, Stella, who confirmed on X that he was free. She thanked Assange’s supporters, saying “words cannot express our immense gratitude”.

In the WikiLeaks video, Assange, looking healthy dressed in a shirt and jeans with his white hair cut short, is seen climbing the stairs into a plane.

Screenshot from the video of Julian Assange boarding a flight at London Stansted airport. Photograph: WikiLeaks

Assange’s mother Christine welcomed the developments, saying “I am grateful my son’s ordeal is finally coming to an end.”

The plea agreement comes months after the US president, Joe Biden, said he was considering a request from Australia to drop the US push to prosecute Assange.

WikiLeaks in 2010 released hundreds of thousands of classified US military documents on Washington’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – the largest security breaches of their kind in US military history – along with swaths of diplomatic cables.

Assange was indicted during the former president Donald Trump’s administration over the release of documents, which were leaked by Chelsea Manning, a former US military intelligence analyst who was also prosecuted under the Espionage Act.

Many press freedom advocates have argued that criminally charging Assange represents a threat to free speech.

In a court document filed with the US district court for the Northern Mariana Islands ahead of Wednesday’s sentencing, the US government laid out the details of the charge of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information that lies at the heart of the plea deal. It accuses Assange of “knowingly and unlawfully” conspiring with the US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to “receive and obtain documents, writings, and notes connected with the national defense … up to the SECRET level”.

As news of the plea deal spread on Monday night, there were widespread expressions of relief that Assange’s years-long captivity appeared to be coming to an end. But there were also concerns that a conviction, even on a single count, could have a devastating and prolonged impact on investigative and national security journalism.

Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University which defends press freedom, said that the plea deal averted the worst-case scenario of a full-on prosecution. “But this deal contemplates that Assange will have served five years in prison for activities that journalists engage in every day.”

Jaffer warned that the outcome could “cast a long shadow over the most important kinds of journalism, not just in this country but around the world”.

Meanwhile Mike Pence, the former US vice-president, criticised the deal, saying it was a “miscarriage of justice”.

Writing on X he said: “There should be no plea deals to avoid prison for anyone that endangers the security of our military or the national security of the United States. Ever.”

Assange was first arrested in Britain in 2010 on a European arrest warrant after Swedish authorities said they wanted to question him over sex-crime allegations that were later dropped.

He fled to Ecuador’s embassy, where he remained for seven years, to avoid extradition to Sweden.

He was dragged out of the embassy in 2019 and jailed for skipping bail. He has been in London’s Belmarsh top security jail ever since, from where he has been fighting extradition to the US.

While in Belmarsh, Assange married his partner Stella with whom he had two children while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy.

Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison after being convicted of violating the Espionage Act and other offences for leaking classified government and military documents to WikiLeaks.

President Barack Obama commuted her sentence in 2017, allowing her release after about seven years behind bars.

Ed Pilkington in New York

Reuters contributed to this report

Link :
Julian Assange leaves Britain after striking deal with US justice department

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We should remind ourselves :

National Union of Journalists statement on the Julian Assange Case :

“We condemn the detention of Julian Assange pending his extradition proceedings. We further condemn the attempted use of the US Espionage Act to prosecute Assange for his work exposing the war crimes committed by US service personnel in the Iraq and Afghan war logs.

It is our view that the use of these judicial measures by the US constitutes a grave threat to free speech and a free press. It further notes that this attempted prosecution is without precedent in US law.

We further note the report of UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, that concluded that there was “overwhelming evidence that Assange had been subject to psychological torture”. This report also notes the conclusion of more than 60 doctors from around the world that Assange’s health has deteriorated to such an extent that he is in no fit state to stand trial.

We applaud campaigns to draw to broad attention concern about the implications for free speech of Assange’s detention.

We call on our union to campaign to draw this case to the attention of our members and to make the case that trades unionists oppose the persecution of Julian Assange.