Coinciding with Julian Assange‘s return to Australia yesterday, Network Ten will tonight air Underground: The Julian Assange Story.
The film, starring Alex Williams as Julian Assange alongside Rachel Griffiths and Anthony LaPaglia was first played on the network back in 2010 and will air again tonight at 8:40pm.
Julian Assange is one of the most significant figures of the 21st century. But before he was famous, before his imprisonment and release, he was a teenage computer hacker. Underground is his story.
The Wikileaks founder struck a guilty plea deal with the U.S. Justice Department earlier this week. He walked free from the British prison that has been his home for the last five years and returned to Australia yesterday. Flying into Canberra just after 7:30 p.m. last night, Assange reunited with his wife, Stella.
The charges against Assange were linked to one of the largest publications of classified information in US history, taking place back in 2010. He allegedly conspired with Chelsea Manning, a military intelligence analyst, to disclose tens of thousands of Afghan war activity reports, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi war reports, State Department cables, and Guantanamo Bay detainee assessments via WikiLeaks.
This trove of over 700,000 documents included a 2007 video showing a US Apache helicopter attacking suspected insurgents in Iraq, resulting in twelve deaths, including two Reuters journalists.
The charges ignited a global outcry from Assange’s supporters, who argue that as a publisher, he should not be prosecuted under laws typically applied to government employees who leak classified information. Many advocates for press freedom have condemned the charges, viewing them as a threat to free speech.
Assange was initially arrested in the UK in 2010 due to a European arrest warrant over Swedish sex crime charges, which were later dropped. He sought refuge in Ecuador’s embassy for seven years to avoid extradition to Sweden.
In 2019, he was forcibly removed from the embassy (see video below), captured in widely publicised footage, and jailed for bail violation.
Until his release this week, he has been held in London’s high-security Belmarsh prison, contesting extradition to the US for nearly five years.
Underground: The Julian Assange Story airs at 8:40pm tonight on Network Ten.
