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I Chose Freedom over Justice, Julian Assange Tells European Lawmakers

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (R) and his wife Stella Assage (L) at the Council of Europe to be auditioned in Strasbourg, France, 01 October 2024. (EPA)
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (R) and his wife Stella Assage (L) at the Council of Europe to be auditioned in Strasbourg, France, 01 October 2024. (EPA)
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I Chose Freedom over Justice, Julian Assange Tells European Lawmakers

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (R) and his wife Stella Assage (L) at the Council of Europe to be auditioned in Strasbourg, France, 01 October 2024. (EPA)
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (R) and his wife Stella Assage (L) at the Council of Europe to be auditioned in Strasbourg, France, 01 October 2024. (EPA)

Julian Assange, the founder of whistleblower media group WikiLeaks, told European lawmakers on Tuesday his guilty plea to US espionage accusations was necessary because legal and political efforts to protect his freedom were not sufficient.

"I eventually chose freedom over an unrealizable justice," Assange said, in his first public comments since his release from prison.

Assange, 53, returned to his home country Australia in June after a deal was struck for his release which saw him plead guilty to violating US espionage law, ending a 14-year British legal odyssey.

"I am free today after years of incarceration because I pleaded guilty to journalism, pleaded guilty to seeking information from sources, I pleaded guilty to obtaining information from a source and I pleaded guilty to informing the public", he added.

Assange was addressing the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights at the Council of Europe, the international organization best known for its human rights convention.

A report by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe concluded Assange was a political prisoner and called for Britain to hold an inquiry into whether he had been exposed to inhuman treatment.

Dressed in a black suit with a burgundy tie and wearing a slight white beard, Assange sat between his wife Stella, and WikiLeaks' editor Kristinn Hrafnsson, reading out his initial remarks from sheets of paper.

"I am yet not fully equipped to speak about what I have endured," he said, adding: "Isolation has taken its toll which I am trying to unwind."

His wife, whom he married while in a London jail, said last month he would need some time to regain his health and sanity after his long incarceration, as well as to be with their two children who he had never seen outside of a prison.

The most controversial leaks by WikiLeaks featured classified US military documents and videos from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the early to mid 2000s that it said highlighted issues such as abuse of prisoners in US custody, human rights violations and civilian deaths.

US authorities said the leaks were reckless, damaged national security, and endangered the lives of agents.

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Santa and Mrs. Claus Use Military Transports to Bring Christmas to Alaska Native Village

Santa Claus arrives at the school in Yakutat, Alaska,, as part of the Alaska National Guard's Operation Santa initiative that brings Christmas to an Indigenous community that has suffered a hardship, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen).
Santa Claus arrives at the school in Yakutat, Alaska,, as part of the Alaska National Guard's Operation Santa initiative that brings Christmas to an Indigenous community that has suffered a hardship, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen).
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Santa and Mrs. Claus Use Military Transports to Bring Christmas to Alaska Native Village

Santa Claus arrives at the school in Yakutat, Alaska,, as part of the Alaska National Guard's Operation Santa initiative that brings Christmas to an Indigenous community that has suffered a hardship, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen).
Santa Claus arrives at the school in Yakutat, Alaska,, as part of the Alaska National Guard's Operation Santa initiative that brings Christmas to an Indigenous community that has suffered a hardship, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen).

Forget the open-air sleigh overloaded with gifts and powered by flying reindeer.
Santa and Mrs. Claus this week took supersized rides to southeast Alaska in a C-17 military cargo plane and a camouflaged Humvee, as they delivered toys to the Tlingit village of Yakutat, northwest of Juneau, The Associated Press reported.
The visit was part of this year’s Operation Santa Claus, an outreach program of the Alaska National Guard to largely Indigenous communities in the nation’s largest state. Each year, the Guard picks a village that has suffered recent hardship — in Yakutat's case, a massive snowfall that threatened to buckle buildings in 2022.
“This is one of the funnest things we get to do, and this is a proud moment for the National Guard,” Maj. Gen. Torrence Saxe, adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, said Wednesday.
Saxe wore a Guard uniform and a Santa hat that stretched his unit's dress regulations.
The Humvee caused a stir when it entered the school parking lot, and a buzz of “It’s Santa! It’s Santa!” pierced the cold air as dozens of elementary school children gathered outside.
In the school, Mrs. Claus read a Christmas story about the reindeer Dasher. The couple in red then sat for photos with nearly all of the 75 or so students and handed out new backpacks filled with gifts, books, snacks and school supplies donated by the Salvation Army. The school provided lunch, and a local restaurant provided the ice cream and toppings for a sundae bar.
Student Thomas Henry, 10, said while the contents of the backpack were “pretty good,” his favorite item was a plastic dinosaur.
Another, 9-year-old Mackenzie Ross, held her new plush seal toy as she walked around the school gym.
“I think it’s special that I have this opportunity to be here today because I’ve never experienced this before,” she said.
Yakutat, a Tlingit village of about 600 residents, is in the lowlands of the Gulf of Alaska, at the top of Alaska’s panhandle. Nearby is the Hubbard Glacier, a frequent stop for cruise ships.
Some of the National Guard members who visited Yakutat on Wednesday were also there in January 2022, when storms dumped about 6 feet (1.8 meters) of snow in a matter of days, damaging buildings.
Operation Santa started in 1956 when flooding severely curtailed subsistence hunting for residents of St. Mary’s, in western Alaska. Having to spend their money on food, they had little left for Christmas presents, so the military stepped in.
This year, visits were planned to two other communities hit by flooding. Santa’s visit to Circle, in northeastern Alaska, went off without a hitch. Severe weather prevented a visit to Crooked Creek, in the southwestern part of the state, but Christmas was saved when the gifts were delivered there Nov. 16.
“We tend to visit rural communities where it is very isolated,” said Jenni Ragland, service extension director with the Salvation Army Alaska Division. “A lot of kids haven’t traveled to big cities where we typically have Santa and big stores with Christmas gifts and Christmas trees, so we kind of bring the Christmas program on the road."
After the C-17 Globemaster III landed in Yakutat, it quickly returned to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, an hour away, because there was nowhere to park it at the village's tiny airport. Later it returned to pick up the Christmas crew.
Santa and Mrs. Claus, along with their tuckered elves, were seen nodding off on the flight back.