'Timing matters': US judge wishes Assange 'peace' as he's declared free man

What a whirlwind it was in the global spotlight for the Saipan District Court.

It had taken people by surprise when the case of the USA vs Julian Assange suddenly appeared on docket for Wednesday morning.

Judging by the chatter in the queue and the need for an overflow room, after word had spread, the prospect of catching a glimpse of Assange in court and seeing his lengthy legal battle finally reach a US courtroom, proved a curious draw.

Some people had snuck away from work for the morning, and others had foregone their daily swim or sail on the ocean, to follow the courtroom drama instead.

There wasn’t the usual mass of media that would usually flock to such a court case, but it was enough to help fill the public gallery and occupy some of the aforementioned overflow room.

"He’s pretty tall," a man behind me remarked as Assange entered the court with his legal team.

Even sitting down, he dwarfed his defence lawyers. At various stages of the proceedings, the microphones - or at one point a lectern - had to be adjusted to accommodate his height.

It began slightly later than the billed time of 9am, but the judge soon started rattling through the details of the plea agreement, followed by the sentencing.

She remarked that "not everything goes this fast" - but she was methodical and made sure everything went on the record.

After Assange was sworn in under oath, he was asked on three separate occasions for his guilty plea.

He was asked to confirm he had not been threatened or coerced into entering a guilty plea, that he knew it was within his rights to exercise his presumption of innocence and request a grand jury.

Assange was then asked why he was pleading guilty, to which he responded: "Working as a journalist, I encouraged a source to provide information that was said to be classified in order to publish that information. I accept that it is a violation of the espionage statue."

That hinted at an underlying unwillingness to accept his guilt, and in separate comments he told the court that he believed the US first amendment and espionage were in conflict with each other, but he accepted that it would be difficult to win such a case, given the circumstances.

Throughout the proceedings, Assange followed intently, sitting forward in his chair, and answering the judge in a deliberate manner.

When it was the US prosecutors turn to read out the history of the case, he took the opportunity to state on the record that he rejected Assange’s assertion that he was acting as a journalist under the first amendment.

The prosecutor also read out some communications between Assange and Chelsea Manning – the former US soldier who was jailed for stealing classified and top secret documents and giving them to WikiLeaks.

Her sentence was commuted by former US President Barrack Obama and reduced from 35 years to seven years.

In one message exchange, Manning told Assange that she felt she had got everything she could, to which the WikiLeaks founder responded "curious eyes never run dry".

As she moved to wrap up the case, Judge Ramona V Manglona said: "Timing matters."

She explained that if the case had been brought to her back in 2010, at the time the information was disseminated, she would not be so inclined to accept Assange’s guilty plea.

In 2024, with him having already served five years in Belmarsh prison, which she described as one of the harshest in Britain, and having established that there was no individual victim affected, she could make a very different ruling.

She ended her closing statement by wishing Assange an early "Happy Birthday" for next week, noting it would be his first in a long time as a free man.

She also said she hoped he could find some peace.

With that the court was adjourned. Outside we had gathered hoping to hear from Assange, but it was left to his two lawyers to make statements on his behalf.

Some minutes later, the 52-year-old emerged from the courthouse, a free man but a convicted felon.

It might have been the last day he will ever spend on US soil.

Without a response to our questions, he was whisked off to the airport and Saipan slipped back into its sleepy, tropical ease, having enjoyed a brief, but distinctive role in legal history.

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