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Posted: 2024-06-25 19:00:11

The pictures of Julian Assange fronting a court in the Northern Mariana Islands — a US Pacific territory almost ten thousand kilometres from the American mainland — will no doubt travel around the world.

It's another unlikely development in a protracted and often astonishing saga which has spanned more than a decade.

But it's not exactly a bolt from the blue.

This might surprise people who have been listening to the sometimes tough language on Mr Assange which has been seeping out of the Biden administration.

Less than 12 months ago the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken fielded a question about the WikiLeaks founder after holding annual AUSMIN talks with Penny Wong and Richard Marles in Brisbane.

Both US and Australian leaders typically deploy comfortable, warm bath homilies about mateship when talking about the alliance, but Mr Blinken's tone become unusually sharp when journalists asked him about Mr Assange's future.

A man sits on a couch and holds papers.

Julian Assange will face court on Wednesday in a US Pacific territory after being released from Belmarsh Prison.(@wikileaks" via X/Handout)

The secretary of state confirmed that Senator Wong had once again pressed him to bring the prosecution to a close. But he added that while he understood Australian "sensitivities" on the case, it was important for Australia recognise there were "sensitivities" in Washington as well.

"Mr Assange was charged with very serious criminal conduct in the United States in connection with his alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of our country," he said.

"The actions that he is alleged to have committed risked very serious harm to our national security, to the benefit of our adversaries and put named human sources at grave risk, grave risk of physical harm, grave risk of detention."

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