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Aaron Bunch

Federal MPs urge President Biden to pardon Assange

Federal MPs are appealing to Joe Biden to pardon Julian Assange in his final days as US President. (Lukas Coch/AAP PHOTOS)

Federal MPs have written to US President Joe Biden asking that he grant Julian Assange a full pardon before leaving office.

The Wikileaks founder was released from custody in June in a freedom deal in which he pleaded guilty to a single charge after the US dropped 17 other espionage offences against him.

The signatories to the letter say Mr Assange's conviction should be set aside, and he should be granted a Presidential pardon, a power often exercised by US Presidents in their final days in office.

Julian Assange greeting his wife after arriving at Canberra Airport
Mr Assange was released from custody in June 2024 after a plea deal with the US government.

"Mr Assange’s recent conviction under the United States Espionage Act sets a deeply troubling precedent for press freedom globally," the open letter released on Friday said.

The signatories include independent MPs Zoe Daniel, Helen Haines, Monique Ryan, David Pocock, Kylea Tink and Andrew Wilkie.

Senior members of the Human Rights Law Centre, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance and The Australia Institute also signed the letter.

Legal action against Mr Assange, 53, started in 2010 after hundreds of thousands of secret documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were published on Wikileaks.

Supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at an event in Canberra
Supporters of Mr Assange praised him for exposing US forces wrongdoing in Aghanistan and Iraq.

His freedom followed a court appearance before a judge in the US territory of the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific where he admitted to conspiring to obtain and disclose classified documents.

The plea deal brought an end to the US government's pursuit of the publisher whose website made him a cause celebre among many press freedom advocates who said he'd acted as a journalist to expose US military wrongdoing. 

US prosecutors had repeatedly asserted that his actions broke the law and put the country's national security at risk. 

The documents published by Wikileaks detailed thousands of civilian deaths as a result of the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts, and implicated American armed forces in the killing of innocent bystanders.

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