Wikileaks founder Julian Assange celebrates first Christmas after prison release

Legal action against Assange started in 2010 after hundreds of thousands of leaked documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were published.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has marked his first Christmas since his release from prison in a rare photo shared by his wife Stella Assange.

Julian Assange with his wife Stella and their children Gabriel and Max (WikiLeaks/PA)

The message, posted online by Ms Assange, features a picture of a smiling Mr Assange, 53, clutching a lamb to his chest against the backdrop of a blue sky in Australia.

It wishes a “Merry Christmas” and a “steadfast push for peace and dignity for all” from the family, who moved to Australia following Mr Assange’s release.

Legal action against Mr Assange, who was born in Queensland, Australia, started in 2010 after hundreds of thousands of leaked documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were published. Mr Assange’s freedom in June followed a court appearance before a judge in the US territory of the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific, where he pleaded guilty to a single charge after the US dropped 17 other espionage charges against him.

In a post on the social network X, formerly Twitter, on Monday night, Ms Assange wrote: “Merry Christmas to everyone from Julian, Stella, and our kids, Gabriel and Max. “May the new year bring a steadfast push for peace and dignity for all.” Mr Assange was freed in the summer after spending five years in Belmarsh Prison, much of it in solitary confinement.

A plea deal brought an end to the US government’s pursuit of the publisher whose secret-sharing website made him a cause celebre among many press freedom advocates who said he acted as a journalist to expose US military wrongdoing. The decision to approve his extradition to the US, made by then-home secretary Priti Patel in June 2022, was formally quashed at the High Court two days after his return to Australia.

Mr Assange had been due to bring a challenge to the extradition in July. US prosecutors had repeatedly asserted that his actions broke the law and put the country’s national security at risk.

The leaks 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, including a father and two Reuters journalists during an air strike on Baghdad in July 2007.