Wikileaks founder Julian AssangeCredit:SMH/Age
To some,however,he will remain an enemy of the United States,no matter what happens in the Saipan court in the Northern Mariana Islands. To them,the plea deal to secure his release is a capitulation after a long effort to put him in prison for life.
Some may gloss over the disputes about Assange when he is welcomed home,but the deep division helps explain why it has taken so long for Australia to exert maximum pressure to gain his release.
Australian officials were hostile to Assange in the early years of WikiLeaks because everything he did was a challenge to established power. Rather than support authority,he wanted to expose it.
Many in Parliament House,from both major parties,felt more suspicion about him than support for him when Swedish prosecutors sought to arrest him on sexual assault charges in 2010. He denied those charges,which were eventually dropped.
The Australian defence for its own citizen,holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy because he feared extradition to the United States,was slow and half-hearted. This approach continued when he was moved to Belmarsh Prison.
As recently as 2022,shortly before the federal election,then-prime minister Scott Morrison merely said Assange could return home if the charges against him were dropped. “The justice system is making its way and we’re not a party to that,” he said. Australia seemed to wash its hands of its problem child.