Int’l community learned ‘truths from Wikileaks,’ says China on Assange’s release

ISTANBUL

The international community has learned “truths” from Wikileaks, China said Tuesday, in its first comments on the release of the group’s founder Julian Assange, state media reported.

“The information disclosed by WikiLeaks has allowed the international community to learn more facts and truths,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told reporters in Beijing.

Mao acknowledged the reports of Assange’s release but refused to discuss the issue any further.

Last month, Beijing said the extradition case against Assange shows that “exposing the US leads to punishment.”

“To the US, freedom of the press, like democratic human rights, is just a tool the US uses to suppress dissidents and maintain its own hegemony,” Wang Wenbin, the former spokesman of the ministry had said.

Assange was released from Belmarsh maximum security prison earlier Monday following a bail by the High Court in the British capital before boarding a flight at London Stansted Airport at 5 p.m. local time (1600GMT).

Court documents indicate that Assange is set to appear in the US District Court in the Mariana Islands, a US commonwealth in the western Pacific Ocean near his native nation Australia, on Wednesday.

The judge on the island of Saipan is set to hear the case at 9 a.m. local time (0200GMT) and the sentencing proceedings are expected to be concluded in a single day.

Assange is expected to plead guilty to a single count of violating the US Espionage Act, namely that he conspired to unlawfully obtain and disclose US national security information.

The plane carrying Assange landed in the Thai capital Bangkok's Don Mueang International Airport for refueling on Tuesday, before it flew to Saipan Island.