I'm so happy to know that Assange is FINALLY free!!! Even if he had to accept a guilty plea, at least he has freedom...
I waited a while before coming back to this thread... waiting to see if new developments will appear regarding Julian being still harassed by any other authorities. It seems so far that he was left in peace... but who knows for how long?
WikiLeaks continues to exist and will still exist... Julian will never hide the truth... so what he faced may happen again.
I remember a passage from the book
Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier, written by Suelette Dreyfus & Julian Assange and mentioned in OP as well. As I wrote in OP, the book describes the rise of Australian hackers and phreakers from 1980s, including the early activity of Julian Assange which, by that time, was known under the nym Mendax. At some point, an Australian hacker was brought to Court for hacking, this being the first trial of a hacker which ended up in front of a Court of Law. Julian attended the trial. At the end, that young hacker passed near him and Julian gave him a long look. The hacker asked, "do I know you?". And Julian said "no, you don't... But what you just lived I will also live but way, way worst than you"... Those words were a premonitory tale, which came true two decades later...
I was also very impressed by the words said by the judge during the trial when Assange was set free:
"
If this case was brought before me some time near 2012, without the benefit of what I know now, that you served a period of imprisonment [...] in apparently one of the harshest facilities in the United Kingdom [...] I would not be so inclined to accept this plea agreement before me." (source:
Guardian)
Last, but not least, in February 2025 will be premiered another movie about Julian Assange.
According to Guardian, "The WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is the subject of a new play by the leading Australian playwright Patricia Cornelius, which will make its world premiere in Melbourne next year. Truth, which uses moments from Assange’s life to probe questions around freedom of information and the silencing of whistleblowers, spans his years as a teenage hacker in Melbourne, the formation of WikiLeaks and his nearly 14 years of prison, embassy confinement and house arrest in the UK – which ended in June, when he entered a plea bargain with the US over espionage charges and returned to Australia a free man. [...] The play will also address the rape and sexual assault allegations made by two Swedish women in 2010, which Assange denied. No charges were brought against him, and the investigation was ultimately dropped by Swedish authorities – but Cornelius says it is still top of people’s minds."
