According to Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, he was finally freed from years of confinement because he chose "freedom over unrealisable justice", which he described his plea deal with US authorities.
In a public comment for the first time since he walked out of detention in the wake of a 14-year court drama with the plea bargain with the US, Assange said on Tuesday before a gathering held in Strasbourg, France, by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, that he had "pleaded guilty to journalism."
"I am not free today because the system worked," Assange told the committee. "I am free today after years of incarceration because I pled guilty to journalism."
"Journalism is not a crime; it is a pillar of a free and informed society," he said.
Tuesday's event was held ahead of a full plenary debate on the subject by the Parliamentary Assembly on Wednesday, Xinhua news agency reported.
In June this year, Assange pleaded guilty to a felony count of violating the Espionage Act, by which he will return to his country, Australia, without serving more prison time in the US. He admitted to "unlawfully obtaining and disseminating classified information relating to national defense" in a federal court in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands.
Just a few months from his release, Assange appeared before the committee to evidence the impact his detention and conviction had on him.
Assange has been involved in a long legal battle with the US government since 2010 when WikiLeaks published hundreds of thousands of classified US military documents relating to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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