American congressmen, Democrat James McGovern and Republican Thomas Massie, sent a letter to US President Joe Biden asking him to pardon WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the Guardian newspaper writes, citing a letter in its possession. According to the publication, the authors of the letter, dated November 1, are “deeply concerned” by the fact that Assange’s admission of guilt sets a precedent for the prosecution of journalists and whistleblowers for
“Simply put, there is a long-standing and well-founded concern that Section 793, which criminalizes the receipt, possession or disclosure of classified information, could be used against journalists and news organizations who go about their regular work, especially those who cover national security topics,” the publication cites an excerpt from the letter. Assange was released from a British prison, where he was being held while his extradition case to the United States was pending, on June 24, 2024, after a partial plea deal with American prosecutors. Assange pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obtain and disclose US national defense information and was sentenced to five years, which he has already spent behind bars. The hearing in his case took place on the island of Saipan, the largest in the Northern Mariana Islands, which are not part of the United States, but are owned by Washington. This confession allowed him to be released after five years behind bars.
Assange gained worldwide fame by founding the website WikiLeaks, where, in particular, hundreds of thousands of confidential materials about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Guantanamo Bay prison, diplomatic cables and personal correspondence of Hillary Clinton, who ran for president, were published. In 2010, the site made public classified US military video showing how a US Air Force helicopter attack in Baghdad in 2007 killed at least 18 civilians. In the United States, the founder of WikiLeaks was charged with 18 criminal charges, on which he faced a total of up to 175 years in prison in connection with the disclosure of the largest array of classified information in the history of the country.
