Barnaby Joyce on Julian Assange’s plea deal with US justice department

Barnaby Joyce on Julian Assange’s plea deal with US justice department

I think it’s important to reiterate this because you don’t want to have a narrative at one stage and then a different sort of you know triumphant narrative at another stage it was not really an issue about um Mr Assange if you asked me do I think what he did was morally correct no it wasn’t but the issue for me is extr territoriality this was an Australian citizen he was not a citizen of the United States he was not in the United States when this felony is what they said was was created he did not steal the information That Was Then Bradley Manning who is now Chelsea Manning he was not the first person to publish this information that was a gentleman I believe in the name of Doyle from cryptomania who first published it and if the um dissemination of this information is a crime then every person where I now stand in the parliament of Australia’s fourth estate is on their way to the United States of America because you all printed it and you know that creates massive confusions I didn’t want to I don’t want a place in Australia where if I offend the Quran I’m off to Riad if I offend the Chinese Communist party I’m off to beij or an Australian citizen who has offends a law in the United States is off the United States unless he’s in the United States when he when he commits it in that case it’s a it’s a completely different issue but um from what I read and of course we’re all very new to this it’s it’s still a plead deal on a felony as a plead deal on a felony he has to uh be heard on the soil of the United States and I read that that may be sipan island uh so we just got to be still cautious still cautious on how this proceeds because the end has not arrived

The former deputy PM cautiously welcomed developments that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will plead guilty to a felony charge in a deal with the US justice department that will allow him to walk free. Joyce was part of the delegation to lobby US law makers over Julian Assange.
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‘No one should judge’ WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for accepting deal, Australian MP says ► https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/jun/25/julian-assange-mother-prison-release-plea-deal-return-australia?CMP=gdnaus_yt

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