Illustration: John Shakespeare

Julian Assange rose to fame as a principled and plucky champion of freedom of speech. His decision to publish millions of leaked US government documents on WikiLeaks was principled because it was in the cause of freedom of speech and the accountability of the powerful.

It was plucky because of the extraordinary weight of official anger that it was certain to bring down on his head. The US Vice-President, Joe Biden, called him ''a high-tech terrorist'' for the damage he was doing to the US intelligence and diplomatic systems.

Sarah Palin said he should be ''hunted down like bin Laden''.

There were valid complaints that WikiLeaks had not taken the responsible precaution of vetting the names of US agents and informers whose lives and families could be in sudden danger. But Assange's policy of ''publish and be damned'' in the interests of free speech was in the best traditions of brave journalism.

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His principled courage won him millions of admirers around the world. Many signed petitions and donated money.

''If I released the Pentagon Papers today, the same rhetoric and the same calls would be made about me,'' said Daniel Ellsberg, the former US Defence Department official who leaked the secret study of the Vietnam War in 1971. ''I would be called not only a traitor, which I was [called] then, which was false and slanderous, but I would be called a terrorist.'' Ellsberg is now regarded as a hero. This might have been Assange's destiny, too.

The moment Assange decided to seek shelter in Ecuador, however, he betrayed the principles he claimed to represent. He made donkeys of everyone who had defended him.

Why? Because Ecuador, under its President of the last five years, Rafael Correa, has become one of the world's leading oppressors of free speech. Correa has appropriated, closed and intimidated many media outlets critical of his government. He has sued journalists for crippling damages.

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Hypocrisy ends hero's freedom to preach