President Gustavo Petro invited Julian Assange to visit Colombia with his wife and joined dozens of congratulations the journalist has received so far.
Bogotá.- On his social network X, the president considered that Assange’s eternal imprisonment and torture was an attack on freedom of the press on a global scale.
"Denouncing the massacre of civilians in Iraq by US war action was his crime, and now the massacre is repeated in Gaza. I invite Julian and his wife, Stella, to visit Colombia and make an act for true freedom," Petro wrote.
As announced in a statement by WikiLeaks, the London High Court released the journalist on bail at Stansted Airport in the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and left the United Kingdom.
Assange was released from the Belmarsh maximum security prison in the morning of June 24, after having spent 1,901 days there, added the text, which was published on Monday night on the anti-secrecy site founded by Assange, which in 2010-2011 leaked the largest number of classified documents in the history of the United States.
The requests calling for the Australian journalist’s release sparked a global campaign that encompassed grassroots organizers, press freedom advocates, lawmakers, and leaders from across the political spectrum, all the way to the United Nations.
"This created the space for a long negotiation period with the US Department of Justice, leading to a deal that has yet to be formally closed."
"We will provide more information as soon as possible," WikiLeaks explained.
Assange lived for over five years in a 2×3-meter cell, isolated for 23 hours daily.
After his release, several Latin American leaders celebrated the news, including Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, and Mexican President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum. (PL)