Julian Paul Assange is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist.
151 Facts About Julian Assange
2.
Julian Assange became involved in the hacker community and was convicted for hacking in 1996.
3.
In March 2010, a member of WikiLeaks identified as Julian Assange talked with Manning by text chat while she submitted leaks.
4.
Julian Assange presented the footage of the July 12,2007, Baghdad airstrike at the Washington Press Club in April 2010.
5.
Julian Assange was granted asylum by Ecuador in August 2012 on the grounds of political persecution and fears he might be extradited to the United States.
6.
On 11 April 2019, Julian Assange's asylum was withdrawn following a series of disputes with Ecuadorian authorities.
7.
Julian Assange was found guilty of breaching the Bail Act and sentenced to 50 weeks in prison.
8.
In May 2019 and June 2020, the US government unsealed new indictments against Julian Assange, charging him with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and alleging a history of conspiring with hackers.
9.
Julian Assange has been confined in Belmarsh, a Category A prison located in Southeast London, since April 2019.
10.
On 4 January 2021, UK District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled against the United States' request to extradite Julian Assange, citing concerns over Julian Assange's mental health and risk of suicide.
11.
On 6 January 2021, Julian Assange was denied bail, pending an appeal by the United States.
12.
On 10 December 2021, the High Court in London ruled that Julian Assange could be extradited to the United States to face the charges.
13.
On 1 July 2022, it was announced that Julian Assange had formally appealed against the extradition order.
14.
Christine then became involved with Leif Meynell, known as Leif Hamilton, whom Julian Assange later described as "a member of an Australian cult" called The Family.
15.
Julian Assange had a nomadic childhood, living in more than 30 Australian towns and cities by the time he reached his mid-teens, when he settled with his mother and half-brother in Melbourne.
16.
Julian Assange attended many schools, including Goolmangar Primary School in New South Wales and Townsville State High School in Queensland as well as being schooled at home.
17.
Julian Assange studied programming, mathematics, and physics at Central Queensland University and the University of Melbourne, but did not complete a degree.
18.
Julian Assange had a self-imposed set of ethics: he didn't damage or crash systems or data he hacked, and he shared information.
19.
The 2010 Swedish television documentary WikiRebels, which was made with Julian Assange's cooperation, hinted he was involved.
20.
In mid-1991, the three hackers began targeting MILNET, a secret data network used by the US military, where Julian Assange found reports he said showed the US military was hacking other parts of itself.
21.
In September 1991, Julian Assange was discovered hacking into the Melbourne master terminal of Nortel, a Canadian multinational telecommunications corporation.
22.
In 1993, Julian Assange provided technical advice and support to help the Victoria Police Child Exploitation Unit to prosecute individuals responsible for publishing and distributing child pornography.
23.
Julian Assange's lawyers said he was pleased to be able to assist, emphasising that he received no personal benefit for this and was not an informer.
24.
Julian Assange joined the cypherpunk mailing list in late 1993 or early 1994.
25.
Julian Assange began programming in 1994, authoring or co-authoring the TCP port scanner Strobe, patches to the open-source database management system PostgreSQL, the Usenet caching software NNTPCache, the Rubberhose deniable encryption system and Surfraw, a command-line interface for web-based search engines.
26.
From 2007 to 2010, Julian Assange travelled continuously on WikiLeaks business, visiting Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America.
27.
Julian Assange commented that financial institutions ordinarily "operate outside the rule of law", and received extensive legal support from free-speech and civil rights groups.
28.
At a European Union-sponsored conference in Brussels, titled Freedom of Expression in Europe, Julian Assange was on a panel with Members of the European Parliament and academics with expertise in freedom of speech laws.
29.
Julian Assange debated Professor Alastair Mullis of the University of East Anglia on the case and its implications for English libel law.
30.
In March 2010, a member of WikiLeaks using the handle "Ox", widely believed to be Julian Assange, talked to Chelsea Manning by text chat while she was submitting leaks to WikiLeaks.
31.
The US referred to these chat logs in the 2018 indictment of Julian Assange and filed an affidavit which said they were able to identify Assange as the person chatting with Manning using hints he made during the chats and that Manning identified him as Assange to Adrian Lamo.
32.
Julian Assange said he was, and told Manning about rainbow tables that WikiLeaks used to crack hashes and find passwords associated with them.
33.
Julian Assange said that he hoped the publication would "correct some of that attack on the truth that occurred before the war, during the war, and which has continued after the war".
34.
The US cited the release in the opening of its request for extradition of Julian Assange, saying his actions put lives at risk.
35.
Lawyers for Julian Assange gave evidence it said would show that Julian Assange was careful to protect lives.
36.
Julian Assange gave the FBI several hard drives he had copied from Assange and core WikiLeaks members.
37.
Julian Assange said that WikiLeaks has no way of knowing the identity of its sources and that chats with sources, including user-names, were anonymous.
38.
In January 2011, Julian Assange described the allegation that WikiLeaks had conspired with Manning as "absolute nonsense".
39.
In 2013, US officials said it was unlikely that the Justice Department would indict Julian Assange for publishing classified documents because it would have to prosecute the news organisations and writers who published classified material.
40.
In June 2013, The New York Times said that court and other documents suggested that Julian Assange was being examined by a grand jury and "several government agencies", including by the FBI.
41.
In July 2015, Julian Assange called himself a "wanted journalist" in an open letter to the French president published in Le Monde.
42.
Julian Assange's indictment was unsealed in 2019 and expanded on later that year and in 2020.
43.
European WikiLeaks members were privately concerned that Julian Assange was spreading allegations of dirty tricks.
44.
Julian Assange left Sweden on 27 September 2010 and an international warrant for his "arrest-in-absence" was issued the same day.
45.
Later that day, Julian Assange told journalist Raffi Khatchadourian that Sweden had a "very, very poor judicial system" that he said was driven by a "crazed radical feminist ideology".
46.
Julian Assange said that the case was a matter of international politics, and referred to Sweden as a "US satrapy".
47.
On 8 December 2010, Julian Assange gave himself up to British police and attended his first extradition hearing, where he was remanded in custody.
48.
Julian Assange said he would go to Sweden if provided with a diplomatic guarantee that he would not be turned over to the United States, to which the Swedish foreign ministry stated that Sweden's legislation does not allow any judicial decision like extradition to be predetermined.
49.
In March 2015, Ny changed her mind about interrogating Julian Assange, who had taken refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
50.
Chief prosecutor Marianne Ny officially revoked his arrest warrant, but said the investigation could still be resumed if Julian Assange visited Sweden before August 2020.
51.
On 19 June 2012, the Ecuadorian foreign minister, Ricardo Patino, announced that Julian Assange had applied for political asylum, that the Ecuadorian government was considering his request, and that Julian Assange was at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
52.
Julian Assange breached his bail conditions by taking up residence in the embassy rather than appearing in court, and faced arrest if he left.
53.
The Australian attorney-general, Nicola Roxon, wrote to Julian Assange's lawyer saying that Australia would not seek to involve itself in any international exchanges about Julian Assange's future.
54.
Julian Assange's lawyers described the letter as a "declaration of abandonment".
55.
WikiLeaks insiders stated that Julian Assange decided to seek asylum because he felt abandoned by the Australian government.
56.
Julian Assange stood for the Australian Senate in the 2013 Australian federal election for the newly formed WikiLeaks Party but failed to win a seat.
57.
Julian Assange said the grounding "reveals the true nature of the relationship between Western Europe and the United States" as "a phone call from US intelligence was enough to close the airspace to a booked presidential flight, which has immunity".
58.
Julian Assange advised Snowden that he would be safest in Russia which was better able to protect its borders than Venezuela, Brazil or Ecuador.
59.
In 2015, Maria Luisa Ramos, the Bolivian ambassador to Russia, accused Julian Assange of putting Morales' life at risk.
60.
On 15 September 2014 while campaigning for Kim Dotcom, Julian Assange appeared via remote video link on his Moment of Truth town hall meeting held in Auckland, which discussed the programme.
61.
Julian Assange said the Snowden documents showed that he had been a target of the programme and that "Operation Speargun" represented "an extreme, bizarre, Orwellian future that is being constructed secretly in New Zealand".
62.
In 2014, the company hired to monitor Julian Assange warned Ecuador's government that he was "intercepting and gathering information from the embassy and the people who worked there" and that he had compromised the embassy's communications system, which WikiLeaks denied.
63.
In September 2016 and again on 12 January 2017, WikiLeaks tweeted that if President Obama granted Chelsea Manning clemency, Julian Assange would agree to US extradition.
64.
Julian Assange said the decision to grant Manning clemency was an attempt to "make life hard" for Julian Assange and make him look like a liar.
65.
One of WikiLeaks' lawyers, Melinda Taylor, said Julian Assange would stand by the offer, and WikiLeaks tweets suggested he was ready for extradition.
66.
Julian Assange faced pressure to agree to extradition, but retreated from the offer.
67.
The New York Times wrote that Julian Assange had timed the release to coincide with the 2016 Democratic National Convention because he believed Clinton had pushed for his indictment and he regarded her as a "liberal war hawk".
68.
In interviews, Julian Assange repeatedly said that the Russian government was not the source of the DNC and Podesta emails, and accused the Clinton campaign of "a kind of neo-McCarthy hysteria" about Russian involvement.
69.
Julian Assange's comments set off a spike in attention to the murder.
70.
Julian Assange's statements lent credibility and visibility to what had at that point been a conspiracy theory in the fringe parts of the Internet.
71.
In October 2021, Julian Assange's lawyers introduced the alleged plot during a hearing of the High Court of Justice in London as it considered the US appeal of a lower court's ruling that Julian Assange could not be extradited to face charges in the US In 2022 the Spanish courts summoned Pompeo as a witness to testify on the alleged plans.
72.
On 6 June 2017, Julian Assange supported NSA leaker Reality Winner, who had been arrested three days earlier, by tweeting "Acts of non-elite sources communicating knowledge should be strongly encouraged".
73.
On 16 August 2017, US Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher visited Julian Assange and told him that Trump would pardon him on condition that he would agree to say that Russia was not involved in the 2016 Democratic National Committee email leaks.
74.
Julian Assange said Al Arabiya had been publishing "increasingly absurd fabrications" during the dispute.
75.
In January 2018, Sean Hannity's Twitter account was temporarily deleted and Julian Assange sent an account impersonating the Fox News host messages offering "news" on Mark Warner, a senior Democrat senator investigating Trump-Russia links.
76.
Julian Assange asked the fake Hannity to contact him about it on "other channels".
77.
In February 2018, after Sweden had suspended its investigation, Julian Assange brought two legal actions, arguing that Britain should drop its arrest warrant for him as it was "no longer right or proportionate to pursue him" and the arrest warrant for breaching bail had lost its "purpose and its function".
78.
In March 2018, Julian Assange used social media to criticise Germany's arrest of Catalonian separatist leader Carles Puigdemont.
79.
Julian Assange tweeted that Britain was about to conduct a propaganda war against Russia relating to the Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal.
80.
Ecuador said he had broken a commitment "not to issue messages that might interfere with other states" and Julian Assange said he was "exercising his right to free speech".
81.
In May 2018, The Guardian reported that over five years Ecuador had spent at least $5million to protect Julian Assange, employing a security company and undercover agents to monitor his visitors, embassy staff and the British police.
82.
Ecuador reportedly devised plans to help Julian Assange escape should British police forcibly enter the embassy to seize him.
83.
The Guardian reported that by 2014 Julian Assange had compromised the embassy's communications system.
84.
Julian Assange was told to provide for the "well-being, food, hygiene and proper care" of his cat, keep his bathroom clean and pay his own costs after 1 December 2018.
85.
Julian Assange would be required to have and pay for quarterly medical care.
86.
On 19 October 2018, Julian Assange sued the government of Ecuador for violating his "fundamental rights and freedoms" by threatening to remove his protection and cut off his access to the outside world, refusing him visits from journalists and human rights organisations and installing signal jammers to prevent phone calls and internet access.
87.
An Ecuadorian judge ruled against him, saying that requiring Julian Assange to pay for his Internet use and clean up after his cat did not violate his right to asylum.
88.
In November 2018, Pamela Anderson, a close friend and regular visitor of Julian Assange, gave an interview in which she asked the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, to defend Julian Assange.
89.
On 21 December 2018, the UN's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention urged the UK to let Julian Assange leave the embassy freely.
90.
In March 2019, Julian Assange submitted a complaint to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights asking the Ecuadorian government to "ease the conditions that it had imposed on his residence" at the embassy and to protect him from extradition to the US.
91.
Julian Assange said the Ecuadorian embassy was trying to end his asylum by spying on him and restricting his visitors.
92.
The investigation was precipitated by a complaint by Julian Assange that accused UC Global of violating his privacy and client-attorney privileges as well as committing misappropriation, bribery and money laundering.
93.
The United Kingdom Central Authority, which is in charge of processing and responding to EIOs in the UK, provisionally denied De la Mata's request to question Julian Assange, raised a number of objections to the request, and asked for more details.
94.
On 2 April 2019, Ecuador's president Moreno said that Julian Assange had violated the terms of his asylum, after photos surfaced on the internet linking Moreno to a corruption scandal.
95.
Foreign Minister Jose Valencia said an audio recording captured Julian Assange threatening Ambassador Jaime Merchan with a panic button that he said would bring devastating consequences for the Embassy in the event of his arrest.
96.
Ecuador's authorities shared the threat with British authorities and when arresting Julian Assange they were careful to not let him trigger any possible emergency plans.
97.
Julian Assange's defence said chief magistrate Emma Arbuthnot, who had dealt with his case, was biased against him as her husband was directly affected by WikiLeaks' allegations.
98.
Julian Assange was remanded to Belmarsh Prison, and on 1 May 2019 was sentenced to 50 weeks imprisonment.
99.
In 2012 and 2013, US officials indicated that Julian Assange was not named in a sealed indictment.
100.
The charges stem from the allegation that Julian Assange attempted and failed to crack a password hash so that Chelsea Manning could use a different username to download classified documents and avoid detection.
101.
On 23 May 2019, Julian Assange was indicted on 17 new charges relating to the Espionage Act of 1917 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
102.
Julian Assange mentioned the case of Seymour Hersh, whom the Justice Department decided after consideration not to charge for reporting on US surveillance of the Soviet Union.
103.
The Associated Press reported that the indictment raised concerns about media freedom, as Julian Assange's solicitation and publication of classified information is a routine job journalists perform.
104.
Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, stated that what Julian Assange is accused of doing is factually different from but legally similar to what professional journalists do.
105.
Suzanne Nossel of PEN America said it was immaterial to the charges whether Julian Assange was a journalist or publisher as the indictment describes activities which "media outlets routinely undertake as part of their role to hold government to account".
106.
Mark Warner, vice-chairman of the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said that Julian Assange was "a dedicated accomplice in efforts to undermine American security".
107.
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, wrote that Julian Assange's prosecution for publishing leaked documents is "a major threat to global media freedom".
108.
Ben Wizner from the American Civil Liberties Union said that prosecuting Julian Assange "for violating US secrecy laws would set an especially dangerous precedent for US journalists, who routinely violate foreign secrecy laws to deliver information vital to the public's interest".
109.
On 13 September 2019, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled that Julian Assange would not be released on 22 September when his prison term ended because he was a flight risk and his lawyer had not applied for bail.
110.
Julian Assange said when his sentence came to an end, his status would change from a serving prisoner to a person facing extradition.
111.
On 1 November 2019, Melzer said that Julian Assange's health had continued to deteriorate and his life was now at risk.
112.
Julian Assange said that the UK government had not acted on the issue.
113.
On 17 February 2020, Australian MPs Andrew Wilkie and George Christensen visited Julian Assange and pressed the UK and Australian governments to intervene to stop his being extradited.
114.
Julian Assange said Assange's past conduct showed how far he was willing to go to avoid extradition.
115.
In September 2020, an open letter in support of Julian Assange was sent to Boris Johnson with the signatures of the Presidents of Argentina and Venezuela and approximately 160 other politicians.
116.
On 21 October 2019, Julian Assange appeared for a case management hearing at the court.
117.
Julian Assange's lawyers contended that he had been charged with political offences and therefore could not be extradited.
118.
Julian Assange appeared in court on 7 September 2020, facing the espionage indictment with 18 counts.
119.
Patrick Eller, a former forensics examiner with the US Army Criminal Investigation Command, testified that Julian Assange did not crack and could not have cracked the password mentioned in the US indictment, as Chelsea Manning had intentionally sent only a portion of the password's hash.
120.
Julian Assange sided with the US on every other point, including whether the charges constituted political offences and whether he was entitled to freedom of speech protections.
121.
On 6 January 2021, Julian Assange was denied bail on the grounds that he was a flight risk, pending an appeal by the United States.
122.
On 24 January 2022 Julian Assange was granted permission to petition the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom for an appeal hearing, but in March the court refused to allow the appeal, saying that Julian Assange had not raised an arguable point of law.
123.
On 1 July 2022, Julian Assange lodged an appeal against the extradition in the High Court.
124.
Julian Assange made a further appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, but on 13 December 2022, this appeal was declared inadmissible.
125.
The EFJ was gravely concerned about the impact of Julian Assange's continued detention on media freedom and the rights of all journalists globally and urged European governments to actively work to secure Julian Assange's release.
126.
The EFJ joined the International Federation of Journalists in calling on the US government to drop all charges against Julian Assange and allow him to return home to his wife and children.
127.
In 2012 Julian Assange hosted World Tomorrow show, broadcast by Russian network RT.
128.
Julian Assange contributed research to Suelette Dreyfus's Underground, and received a co-writer credit for the Calle 13 song "Multi Viral".
129.
In 2010, Julian Assange said he was a libertarian and that "WikiLeaks is designed to make capitalism more free and ethical".
130.
In 2010, Julian Assange received a deal for his autobiography worth at least US$1.3million.
131.
In 2015, in an open letter to French President Hollande, Julian Assange revealed he had another child.
132.
Julian Assange said that this, his youngest child, was French, as was the child's mother.
133.
Julian Assange said his family had faced death threats and harassment because of his work, forcing them to change identities and reduce contact with him.
134.
In 2015, Julian Assange began a relationship with Stella Moris, his South African-born lawyer.
135.
Views on Julian Assange have been given by a number of public figures, including journalists, well-known whistleblowers, activists and world leaders.
136.
In November 2010, an individual from the office of the President of Russia, suggested that Julian Assange should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
137.
Former WikiLeaks member John Young said Julian Assange wanted to go to jail or have a show trial as a way to become more famous.
138.
Julian Assange wrote that Assange had lied to The New Yorker about decrypting the video clip, and had refused to reimburse WikiLeaks' staffers who worked on the project.
139.
In March 2011, Australian author Robert Manne wrote that Julian Assange was "one of the best-known and most-respected human beings on earth".
140.
In September 2011, the Guardian, New York Times, El Pais, Der Spiegel, and Le Monde made a joint statement that they condemned and deplored the decision by Julian Assange to publish the unredacted state department cables and WikiLeaks insiders including Birgita criticised Assange's handling of the moral issue of the Afghan War Diary and "dictatorial tendencies" inside WikiLeaks.
141.
In July 2012, Smith offered his residence in Norfolk for Julian Assange to continue WikiLeaks' operations whilst in the UK.
142.
Smith told the press it was not about whether Julian Assange was right or wrong for what he had done with WikiLeaks, it was about "standing up to the bully" and "whether our country, in these historic times, really was the tolerant, independent, and open place I had been brought up to believe it was and feel that it needs to be".
143.
In early 2014 Andrew O'Hagan, the ghost writer of Julian Assange's autobiography, said that Julian Assange was passionate, funny, lazy, courageous, vain, paranoid, moral, and manipulative.
144.
In November 2014, Spanish Podemos party leader Pablo Iglesias gave his support to Julian Assange, calling him an activist and a journalist and criticising his persecution.
145.
In October 2016, James Ball who had previously worked with Julian Assange, wrote that he had a score to settle with Hillary Clinton and wanted to reassert himself on the world stage, but that he wouldn't knowingly have been a tool of the Russian state.
146.
In 2017, Barrett Brown said that Julian Assange had acted "as a covert political operative" in the 2016 US election, thus betraying WikiLeaks' focus on exposing "corporate and government wrongdoing".
147.
Julian Assange considered the latter to be "an appropriate thing to do", but that "working with an authoritarian would-be leader to deceive the public is indefensible and disgusting".
148.
In late May 2017, President Moreno said that Julian Assange was a "hacker", but that he respected his human rights and Julian Assange's asylum in the embassy would continue.
149.
In January 2021, Australian journalist John Pilger stated that, were Julian Assange to be extradited, "no journalist who challenges power will be safe".
150.
In November 2022, The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El Pais published an open letter that said "the US government should end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets".
151.
Julian Assange certainly intervened in the 2016 election, allegedly with Russian help, to damage the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.