from Sputnik News:
The firebrand transparency activist will soon be free, but his years of confinement have caused untold damage to his mental and physical health.
Press freedom advocates claimed a significant victory this week when it was announced Wikileaks founder Julian Assange would be released from prison.
The journalist had been held in the UK detention facility, often called “Britain’s Guantanamo Bay,” for five years after police stormed the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he had taken refuge. The incident was a shocking turnabout after former leftist leader Rafael Correa first offered Assange asylum in 2012. The raid was reportedly spearheaded by Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who drew up plans to kidnap and kill the firebrand transparency activist during his time at the Central Intelligence Agency.
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Although those plans never came to fruition, US intelligence remained obsessed with Assange and likely prevented his release for years, according to ex-CIA analyst John Kiriakou. The former whistleblower joined Sputnik’s The Final Countdown program Tuesday where he discussed the surprising development with hosts Ted Rall and Angie Wong.
“The pressures are immense,” said Kiriakou, who himself accepted a plea deal after being targeted by the Obama justice department for revealing the CIA’s clandestine torture program. “One of the things that Julian was adamant about was that he would not take a plea to an espionage charge and in the end, he did not take a plea to an espionage charge. He took a plea to a conspiracy charge and was given time served.”
“So that’s a win.”
