I advised Julian Assange’s lawyers – here’s how we beat the US courts

The United States may have shot itself in the foot with its handling of the WikiLeaks founder’s case, writes Eric Lewis, who served as an expert on US law for Assange’s defense team

On Wednesday, Julian Assange touched down in his home country, Australia, to be with his wife and family (PA Wire)

After a legal battle which has spanned more than a decade, during which time Julian Assange claimed political asylum for seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and spent five years and two months detained in the harsh Belmarsh Prison while fighting extradition, the WikiLeaks founder has pleaded guilty to a single count of violating the United States Espionage Act. He was sentenced to time already served, and on Wednesday touched down in his home country of Australia to be with his wife and family.

The plea deal which saw Assange walk free was no doubt spurred to completion by the recent granting of a full appeal in England, after two judges sought and failed to receive satisfactory assurances from the United States government that he would be permitted to rely on a defense under the first amendment to the US constitution, and that he would not be prejudiced at trial due to his foreign nationality.

Had the two judges found these assurances satisfactory, he would have been on a plane, in handcuffs, to the Eastern District of Virginia (where the Pentagon and CIA are located) to face up to 175 years in prison under an 18-count indictment, rather than on the private jet that returned him to Australia.