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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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Rwanda and WHO Declare End of Marburg Outbreak after No New Cases Reported

In this Oct. 8, 2014 photo, a medical worker from the Infection Prevention and Control unit wearing full protective equipment carries a meal to an isolation tent housing a man being quarantined after coming into contact in Uganda with a carrier of the Marburg Virus, at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. (AP)
In this Oct. 8, 2014 photo, a medical worker from the Infection Prevention and Control unit wearing full protective equipment carries a meal to an isolation tent housing a man being quarantined after coming into contact in Uganda with a carrier of the Marburg Virus, at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. (AP)
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Rwanda and WHO Declare End of Marburg Outbreak after No New Cases Reported

In this Oct. 8, 2014 photo, a medical worker from the Infection Prevention and Control unit wearing full protective equipment carries a meal to an isolation tent housing a man being quarantined after coming into contact in Uganda with a carrier of the Marburg Virus, at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. (AP)
In this Oct. 8, 2014 photo, a medical worker from the Infection Prevention and Control unit wearing full protective equipment carries a meal to an isolation tent housing a man being quarantined after coming into contact in Uganda with a carrier of the Marburg Virus, at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. (AP)

The World Health Organization and the Rwandan government on Friday declared the outbreak in Rwanda of the Ebola-like Marburg fever over after no new cases were registered in recent weeks.

The country first declared the outbreak on Sept. 27 and reported a total of 15 deaths and 66 cases, with the majority of those affected healthcare workers who handled the first patients.

Without treatment, Marburg can be fatal in up to 88% of people who fall ill with the disease. Symptoms include fever, muscle pains, diarrhea, vomiting and, in some cases, death through extreme blood loss.

There is no authorized vaccine or treatment for Marburg, though Rwanda received hundreds of doses of a vaccine under trial in October.

An outbreak is considered over after 42 days — two 21-day incubation cycles of the virus — elapsed without registering new cases and all existing cases test negative.

Rwanda discharged the last Marburg patient on Nov. 8 and had reported no new confirmed cases since Oct. 30.

However, WHO officials and Rwanda's Health Minister Dr. Sabin Nzanzimana on Friday said risks remain and that people should stay vigilant.

“We believe it’s not completely over because we still face risks, especially from bats. We are continuing to build new strategies, form new health teams, and deploy advanced technologies to track their movements, understand their behavior, and monitor who is interacting with them,” the minister announced during a press conference in the capital, Kigali.

Like Ebola, the Marburg virus is believed to originate in fruit bats and spreads between people through close contact with the bodily fluids of infected individuals or with surfaces, such as contaminated bed sheets.

“I thank the government of Rwanda, its leadership and Rwandans in general for the strong response to achieve this success but the battle continues,” said the WHO representative in Rwanda, Dr. Brain Chirombo.

Marburg outbreaks and individual cases have in the past been recorded in Tanzania, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Congo, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Ghana.

The virus was first identified in 1967 after it caused simultaneous outbreaks of disease in laboratories in the German city of Marburg and in Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia. Seven people died after being exposed to the virus while conducting research on monkeys.