WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gave his first public remarks on Tuesday since his release from a UK prison in June.

Speaking before the legal affairs and human rights committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France, Assange addressed the protracted legal battle that had defined his life for over a decade.

"I am not free today because the system worked," Assange told lawmakers from 46 countries. "I am free today after years of incarceration because I pled guilty to journalism."

He added: "I pled guilty to seeking information from a source. I pled guilty to obtaining information from a source. And I pled guilty to informing the public what that information was."

Assange said that moving from confinement in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to British prison to addressing the council was a "profound and surreal shift," adding that the last few years had been a "relentless struggle to stay alive, both physically and mentally."

Long legal battle

After his release three months earlier, his wife, Stella Assange, said that the famous whistleblower needed time to recuperate physically from his stay in the UK's maximum security Belmarsh Prison, where he was kept in solitary confinement.

WikiLeaks became a household name in 2010, when it published top secret files from the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including evidence of potential war crimes on the part of US service members.

Being sought in Sweden on sexual assault allegations and by the US for an espionage investigation, Assange took asylum in Ecuador's Embassy in 2012. However, he was dragged out in 2019 following years of souring relations with the Ecuadorian government and what critics called an increasing tendancy to peddle conspiracy theories.

He was sent to London's Belmarsh prison for skipping bail, and fought US extradition for several years. He was released in June after agreeing to plead guilty to publishing secret US military documents and sentenced to time served in the UK.

Following the plea deal, he returned to his native Australia a free man.

es/nm (AP, Reuters)