Julian Assange is the founder of WikiLeaks and a well-known Australian journalist and programmer. His activities include the publication of confidential government and corporate documents, which have generated both support and controversy. Assange faces legal challenges, including charges of sex crimes and possible extradition to the United States for violating the Espionage Act.
Julian Assange is an iconic and controversial figure of our time, which has aroused the interest of the world community. The peculiarities of the activities of celebrities are different: some are journalists who tell the truth, others are criminals. There is no doubt that the Australian is the author of the Wikileaks portal and has forever written his name in history as a fighter for freedom of speech.
Julian Paul Hawkins was born on July 3, 1971 in Townsville, in northeastern Australia. His parents were the architect John Shipton and the artist Christine Ann Hawkins, who divorced before the birth of their son.
Soon, the celebrity’s mother married the owner of the traveling theater Brecht Assange, who gave the boy a famous name. The early years of the biography of the future whistle-blower were spent in separations. According to the activities of the head of the family, they constantly had to change their place of residence.
When Julian was 9 years old, his mother divorced his brother, married musician Hamilton Leif and gave birth to another son. The young adventures of the programmer did not end there – the new stepfather turned out to be a member of a sect, the founder of which took the newborn child from its followers.
After learning the terrible truth, the mother fled with two sons in her arms, and Assange’s youth for the next 5 years was spent on constant trips. Later, Julian said that he managed to change more than 30 schools and 6 universities. It is known that he graduated from the University of Queensland and the University of Melbourne, but did not graduate from either.
At the age of 16, Julian became seriously interested in hacking. Soon he founded the group The International Subversives, whose purpose was to exchange information. The first achievement of the young programmer’s activity was the hacking of the central server of the Canadian telecommunications company Nortel Networks. A criminal case was opened against the hacker, but he was fined because the damage was minor.
Later, Assange took up legal programming and became the administrator of Australia’s first internet hosting company. At the same time, he not only wrote programs related to network security systems, but also created software for the police. He assisted in investigations related to the publication of child pornography.
In addition, together with his mother, Julian founded the project for the protection of children’s rights, which exposes corrupt organizations related to the social protection of citizens and health protection. internet hackers.
The main project for Julian was the WikiLeaks website, which he thought about creating back in the 90s. A young programmer registered the leaks.org domain, but it never found use. The platform for information exchange appeared only in 2006 and immediately attracted the attention of users.
More than one Australian worked on the creation of the site. For a long time, his closest associate remained the German activist Daniel Schmidt (Domscheit-Berg), who left the project in 2010 after a conflict with a colleague.
Leaks translates as “drain”, which characterizes the site’s activity. From the very beginning, secret data from anonymous sources, often obtained illegally, were published there. Assange exposed corruption schemes in the highest echelons of power in all countries of the world.
The Internet resource was made reliably protected and it was impossible to remove already published material from it. The site for hosting the main server was the Swedish company PRQ.se, which gave a guarantee that it would never be closed according to court requirements.
During the years of Assange’s “truth factory”, revelations were made public that caused international scandals. In Wikileaks, the secret correspondence of the head of the CIA, the fact of total surveillance by the American special services on the leaders of the largest countries of the world was stated. In addition, hackers disclosed hundreds of thousands of secret documents related to the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. This included video confirmation of the shooting of civilians by American servicemen in the conflict zone.
The scandalous fame of the Wikileaks website has reached the far corners of the planet. 2 years after launching the online platform, Julian was awarded an Amnesty International award for his work exposing corruption schemes in the Kenyan government. Assange’s face attracted the attention of users, so the hacker became the person of the year according to Time magazine in 2010, and The Guardian published a profile on the 58th step of the ranking of the most influential media personalities.
In 2013, journalists posted a link on WikiLeaks for downloading secret documents, the volume of which reached 400 gigabytes. Assange has promised to encrypt this data and release the keys in case of harm to members of the organization, including Edward Snowden.
In 2010, Swedish authorities opened an investigation into Assange on March 8. A man from Australia has been accused of sexually assaulting two women. Julian himself suggested that the incident was fabricated due to the publication on the Wikileaks website of documents and videos about US military operations in the Middle East. The incident was then closed, but resumed on May 9.
The court issued an arrest warrant for the celebrity, but he filed it in London. Assange was then declared an international wanted man and forced to voluntarily surrender. While in detention, the journalist created a website where he outlined his vision for prosecution by Sweden.
During this period, the money accounts of programmers who were in PostFinance bank were frozen. The account of WikiLeaks in the international payment system PayPal was also blocked. Visa and MasterCard did the same. And the administration of social networks closed the accounts of Assange and his supporters and destroyed public messages of users.
Just 12 months later, the hacker was released on £240,000 bail on his own recognizance. In 2011, a British court issued a verdict on the celebrity’s extradition to Sweden. But Julian hid in the embassy of Ecuador in London. The authorities of the Latin American country offered him political asylum immediately after the start of the high-profile exposure.
In Assange’s new house, conditions were created for a comfortable stay: a studio room with the necessary furniture, computers, solar lamps and sports equipment, where the journalists worked for 1 day and 17 hours.
In 2016, hackers published a secret EU report on the fight against refugees, which revealed who was behind the “Panama Papers” scandal, which involved many high-profile people in illegal offshore schemes.
All this time, the police worked around the clock in the embassy building and were ready at any moment to arrest Julian and send him to Sweden. And the statute of limitations in rape cases gradually expired, and the last one was closed in 2020. But journalists could not wait for this for security reasons.
While hiding in the embassy, Assange was engaged in journalism. In 2012, the premiere of the program “The World Tomorrow” took place.
The programmer tried more than once to print an autobiography. In 2011, the Scottish publishing house self-published the book, the contract under which Julian terminated earlier, considering the story too intimate for publication.
After 3 years, the author tried again and presented the work “When Google met WikiLeaks” in three languages, where, in addition to the story of his own life, he published facts exposing the creators of the Google search engine.
Even during the prosecution, Assange remained a celebrity and regularly starred in movies. In 2013, the premiere of the thriller “The Fifth Estate” took place, where the role of the famous hacker was played by Benedict Cumberbatch.
In addition, documentaries were repeatedly dedicated to the programmer, including “Risk” and “The Story of Julian Assange”. He personally appeared in the tape “Citizenfour. Snowden’s truth” about his friend and associate.
In his youth, the hacker was married. Wife Teresa gave birth to Assange’s son Daniel in 1989, but left her husband shortly after the birth of the child due to the first hacking scandal. It took the celebrity years to judge the heir from his ex-wife. It is reported that the trial took place with difficulty. At this time, Julian was completely gray and stood out in the photo.
For the next 14 years, the truth-loving man raised his child independently as a single father, but after the criminal prosecution began, he was forced to stop communicating with his son, who did not hold a grudge against his father and supported him.
In 2016, Pamela Anderson, with whom he was credited with an affair, visited the hacker. But at that time, another woman was in the heart of the celebrity. While living in the Ecuadorian embassy, Assange became close to lawyer Stella Morris. His beloved bore him two children – Gabriel and Max.
The details of Julian’s personal life were revealed only in 2020. The lovers decided to get married, but it turned out to be not so easy, because the programmer was in prison. It took several months to get permission to hold the ceremony. And only on March 23, 2022, the couple got married in a British prison.
On April 11, 2019, the founder of WikiLeaks was detained by the London police on the territory of the Ecuadorian embassy. The British government has given written guarantees that the journalist will not be extradited to countries where there is a threat to his life.
Earlier, the president of the Latin American country, Lenin Moreno, said that Julian’s stay in the diplomatic mission could not continue due to his disrespectful and hostile attitude towards Ecuador, as well as due to repeated violations of international agreements on non-interference in the internal politics of other states.
The final decision was made by the head of the Latin American state after a document about the Vatican was published on the Wikileaks website on May 1. Moreno denied diplomatic asylum to the scandalous journalist, and he was later stripped of his Ecuadorian citizenship.
After the arrest, the journalist was placed in the Central Investigation Department of the British capital. His case was later heard at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. During the meeting of the judicial committee, a rally was held in front of the building in defense of the head of Wikileaks. Activists in Yellow Vests also began to support journalists.
According to the results of the hearing, Assange was accused of violating the conditions of release on bail and not appearing in court within the specified time. He was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison, which UN officials found unreasonably harsh.
The public has not moved away from what is happening. Edward Snowden called it “a black day for freedom of the press”.
While incarcerated in a British prison, Julian was charged in the United States with espionage and conspiracy with Chelsea Manning, one of his anonymous informants, and faced up to 5 years in prison under American law, but later added 17 more charges.
Hearings on extradition to the USA soon began in the British courts. During this time, the activist’s health caused concern among his supporters and members of international organizations. Those few who managed to visit the celebrity said that he was subjected to psychological torture.
Human rights activist Craig Murray told reporters that during the extradition hearing, Julian looked old and frail, had difficulty formulating his thoughts and could not even recall facts from his biography.
At the beginning of 2021, a court decision announced that Assange cannot be extradited to the United States due to his health. According to the medical report, the hacker showed signs of autism and clinical depression, and a tendency to commit suicide. But Julian remained in custody until the end of the term set aside for filing an appeal by the American Ministry of Justice.
In December 2021, the High Court in London heard an appeal by the US against the extradition request.
This time, the request of the American authorities was satisfied, as they provided guarantees that Assange would not be subjected to solitary confinement or detention in a high-security prison. This was named among the risks that could push Julian to commit suicide.
The case was referred to Westminster Magistrates’ Court for referral to the UK Home Secretary for a final verdict. The celebrity’s lawyer announced his intention to request a review of the decision. At the same time it became known that Assange suffered a stroke in a London prison.
Nowadays, the development of the case is watched by celebrities in many countries of the world. In the summer of 2022, on the basis of the verdict of the British courts, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Priti Patel, approved the extradition of Julian. The defense of the journalist filed an appeal, which was rejected by the High Court of London in June 2023.
In the fall, Assange was visited in prison by American TV presenter Tucker Carlson, who interviewed him.
In February 2024, hearings on the appeal against Julian’s extradition decision resumed. At the same time, the journalist himself continued to be in the Belmarsh maximum security prison.
In March, the High Court in London decided to delay Assange’s extradition. He also called on the United States to provide Britain with guarantees within three weeks that Julian would not under any circumstances be sentenced to death by the American side. The next meeting was scheduled for May 20, during which Assange was allowed to appeal the decision to extradite him to the United States.
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