WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange makes his first public statement since being released from prison

LONDON (AP) — Wikileaks founder Julian Assange will make his first public statements since his release from prison when he addresses the Council of Europe on Tuesday.

Assange, 53, is expected to testify before the Legal and Human Rights Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France.

The Parliamentary Assembly, which includes parliamentarians from 46 European countries, said the hearing would focus on Assange’s detention and conviction “and its chilling impact on human rights”, before a debate on the issue on Wednesday.

WikiLeaks said in a statement that Assange would attend the hearing in person “due to the exceptional nature of the invitation.”

Assange was released in June after five years in a British prison after pleading guilty to obtaining and publishing U.S. military secrets as part of a deal with Justice Department prosecutors that capped a lengthy legal saga. Before his prison term, he had spent seven years in self-imposed exile in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he sought asylum because of political persecution.

The Australian internet publisher was accused of obtaining and publishing hundreds of thousands of war logs and diplomatic cables that contained details of US military misconduct in Iraq and Afghanistan. His activities were celebrated by press freedom advocates, who brought to light his role in exposing military behavior that might otherwise have remained hidden.

The files released by WikiLeaks included a video of an Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad in 2007 that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.

But critics say his behavior endangered America’s national security and the lives of innocent people – such as people who provided information to U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan – and went far beyond the bounds of traditional journalistic duties.

The year-long case ended with Assange entering his plea in a U.S. district court in the Northern Mariana Islands, an American commonwealth in the Pacific.

Assange pleaded guilty under the Espionage Act to conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information. A judge sentenced him to the five years he had already spent behind bars in the United Kingdom fighting extradition to the United States.

Assange returned to Australia a free man at the end of June. At the time, his wife Stella said he needed time to recover before he could speak publicly.

His appearance on Tuesday came after the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly released a report into Assange’s imprisonment in a British high-security prison for five years.

The assembly’s human rights committee declared that Assange was a political prisoner and issued a draft resolution expressing deep concern about his harsh treatment.

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