Blackburn candidate Craig Murray welcomes Julian Assange release

Blackburn's Workers Party election candidate Craig Murray has welcomed the release of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

The Australian national is on his way to the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory, after having been freed from London's Belmarsh Prison where he had spent five years fighting extradition to the US.

Last week, he signed a deal with the US that will see him plead guilty to one espionage charge but not face further prison time and be free to return to Australia due to time served in the UK.

Mr Assange was originally facing 18 charges related to his release of confidential US military documents and feared a long sentence in a high-security prison in America.

Workers Party of Britain candidate Mr Murray has long campaigned to free Julian Assange.

He was one of only six guests at the wedding of Julian and Stella Assange in Belmarsh prison and attended every day of Assange’s extradition hearings in the UK.

Speaking today in Blackburn, where he had located a poster on the issue near his Whalley Range campaign office, Mr Murray said: "I am absolutely delighted.

"This is a wonderful day when I think above all about the family, Julian, Stella, and little Gabriel and Max. They have suffered so much.

"Think of this: none of those who committed the war crimes which Julian exposed has ever spent a day in prison.

"But the greatest journalist of our age has spent years in maximum security jail simply for telling the truth."