MOSCOW, June 26. The wife of Australian journalist and founder of the Wikileaks service Julian Assange, Stella, said on her account on the social network X that the court verdict for her husband put an end to “this unfounded dirty campaign.”
Earlier, the Northern Mariana Islands court sentenced Assange to the time already served and released him, indicating that the case was closed. Australian television channel ABC also showed on its air that the plane with Assange on board flew to Australia.
«The judge's comments on the sentence put an end to this baseless dirty campaign,» the journalist's wife wrote.
Later, Stella Assange reposted a video with an appeal from her husband's lawyer Barry Pollack to journalists. He expressed hope that Julian Assange was pleased with the decision, noting that the journalist «did not renounce his principles.»
Assange was released from a British prison on the morning of June 24 after he agreed with American prosecutors on a partial plea of guilty. This recognition allowed him to be released after five years that the journalist had already spent behind bars.
Assange's release was previously welcomed in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Nicaragua and Cuba. The International Federation of Journalists called this event a victory for journalists around the world.
Australian journalist Assange gained worldwide fame in connection with his work on the Wikileaks website, founded for the purpose of publishing secret documents. In 2010, the site made public secret video footage of the US military, which showed how at least 18 civilians were killed after a US Air Force helicopter attack in Baghdad in 2007. In 2010, the site also began publishing 250 thousand American documents of a diplomatic nature.
In the United States, the founder of Wikileaks was charged with 18 criminal charges, for which he faced a total of up to 175 years in prison in connection with the disclosure of the largest secret array in the history of the country information.