By Jonathan Head, BBC News, Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands
ReutersThe Saipanese area courthouse, which is smooth and marbled, could be anywhere in the country thanks to the officials who waved us in their colorful shirts. The leaves of the fire trees whose blossoms blaze against soft green grass rustled as warm ocean breezes from the Pacific rustled.
It was the most unlikely venue to witness the end of the long and bitter saga of Julian Assange.
Assange had chosen it because it was the US territory’s farthest away from the US island, from the Washington energy centers against which he had waged so many of his efforts.
Lying 2, 500km ( 1, 550 miles ) east of the Philippines, Saipan is on the way to nowhere.
Except, maybe, Australia.
EPAInside the court though it was all company.
Yet Assange, whose presence has taken some bizarre turns over the past 14 years, had gotten smarter, tying his tattered brownish tie, and was sporting a black coat.
Judge Ramona Manglona, who was hearing what must have been the biggest event of her profession, would not be rushed.
She constantly checked that the Wikileaks leader was delighted with what he had agreed to in the package the Wikileaks leader had made with US government officials to close their lengthy legal battle.
He responded vehemently to every issue, saying “yes, he was joyful.”
Little of the bombast he had displayed in his earlier ages was absent. Both Julian Assange and the prosecution appeared anxious to reach the conclusion of the reading after their lengthy conflict.
When the prosecutor asked him whether he had broken the law, there was just one spark of the former Assange.
He responded that he felt the Espionage Act, which he was charged with, was in discord with the first amendment of the US constitution, which protected the right to free speech, and that he was running Wikileaks when he dropped thousands of classified records into the public domain.
But it did not last long. Yes, he acknowledged, whatever I thought therefore I do then take that I have broken that law.
People outside the courthouse were perplexed by the abrupt invasion of journalists, which was unusual for a city with much news coverage.
19 times before Julian Assange brought his renown to Saipan, I was the last one there when I traveled with the Chinese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko.
When troops and civilians were told they had no surrender to the advancing Americans, World War II’s capital city, the Northern Mariana Islands, was the site of a particularly harsh challenge.
In the north of the island, thousands of civilians were persuaded to leap to their deaths from a high mountain.
The emperor and empress contemplated the sad loss of life that their forebearers had started.
Nowadays, people were approaching us with bags of mementos, capitalising on their much- flung region’s time in the spotlight. Some people were unaware of Julian Assange’s identity. There was no way to learn.
Judge Manglona gave his release after two hours of deliberation, saying,” An earlier happy birthday to you.” Assange turns 53 second year.
And she reaffirmed to him and to the prosecutors that Saipan had just celebrated 80 years of peace, amidst the horrible hostilities between the Americans and the Chinese, and that she hoped that he would then find serenity in his own existence.
Within minutes, Julian Assange was in a car to the airport, and on his way back to Australia. And Saipan slipped back into its languid routine of flowers and palms and Korean honeymooners strolling the beaches.