The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, who spoke in public today for the first time since he was released from custody, said in the Council of Europe (CE) that he is free because he pleaded "guilty because he was engaged in journalism".
"I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today after years in prison because I pleaded guilty because I was engaged in journalism," Assange said before the Committee for Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the SE Parliamentary Assembly in Strasbourg.
He said he "pleaded guilty to soliciting information from sources and informing the public of the nature of that information."
"I have not pleaded guilty to any other charge," he added.
Assange expressed the hope that his "testimony today can serve to highlight the weaknesses of existing safeguards and to help those whose cases are less visible but who are just as vulnerable."
He regretted seeing "retaliation against those who speak the truth and seeing more self-censorship."
The debate in the SE Parliamentary Assembly on the case of Assange and his testimony is scheduled for tomorrow.
Assange, who is 53, returned to Australia in June after spending 14 years imprisoned first in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and then in custody at Belmarsh, a prison outside London.
The US Justice Department prosecuted Assange for releasing more than 700.000 classified documents about US military and diplomatic activities, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.
After pleading guilty in June to obtaining and disclosing information about US national defense, he was sentenced to five years in prison. He had spent that much time in extradition custody in Great Britain, and thus was released.
His supporters see him as an investigative journalist, persecuted for revealing information, while opponents claim that he is a "reckless blogger" whose decision to publish highly sensitive documents put lives at risk and seriously threatened US security.
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