Julian Assange granted new passport by Australia

Julian Assange gets a new Australian passport, clearing one of several hurdles keeping the wanted WikiLeaks publisher from exiting the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and returning home.

The new passport that allows Assange to return to Australia was issued in September 2018, but it was unreported till Saturday. The previous passport of Assange, who is weakening in health, had been expired.

On Thursday, the officials of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) told that that Assange had a valid passport, reiterating a statement from last October.

A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade official confirmed in a Senate estimates hearing on Thursday that Mr Assange’s 2018 application for a new passport had been accepted. Consular and Crisis Management Division first assistant secretary Andrew Todd said, “Mr Assange does have an Australian passport”.

Mr. Assange, 47, was born in Townsville, Australia, in 1971. He has lived in the Ecuadorian Embassy since 2012, however, when he sought asylum in the face of the U.S. investigating his WikiLeaks website over its publication of classified State and Defense Department material. British authorities issued a warrant for his arrest in the interim, and he fears he will be apprehended if he leaves the embassy and extradited to the U.S. to face charges related to releasing hundreds of thousands of secretive documents.

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