‘I chose freedom over justice’

Julian Assange, the founder of whistleblower media group WikiLeaks, told European lawmakers yesterday his guilty plea to US espionage accusations was necessary because legal and political efforts to protect his freedom were not sufficient.

"I eventually chose freedom over an unrealisable justice," Assange said, in his first public comments since his release from prison, addressing a committee at the Council of Europe, the international body best known for its human rights convention.

Assange, 53, returned to his home country Australia in June after a deal was struck for his release which saw him plead guilty to violating US espionage law, ending a 14-year British legal odyssey.

"I am free today after years of incarceration because I pleaded guilty to journalism, pleaded guilty to seeking information from a source, I pleaded guilty to obtaining information from a source and I pleaded guilty to informing the public what that information was," he said.

WikiLeaks in 2010 released hundreds of thousands of classified US military documents on Washington's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq along with swaths of diplomatic cables.