CNMI Gov. Palacios details Saipan’s role in Assange visit

New details of the role Saipan played as international attention shifted to the NMI for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s day in federal court.

Gov. Arnold Palacios of the Northern Mariana Islands said, "It was quite an experience. Obviously, this is not going to happen again for a long, long, long time."

Governor Arnold Palacios said he first met with the Australian Ambassador to Palau Richelle Turner on Friday, June 21, who requested ground support for visiting diplomats. Over the weekend, Australian Ambassador to the U.S. Kevin Rudd arrived and the Governor and Lt. Governor David Apatang hosted him for dinner on Monday. By Tuesday morning, news of Assange’s case on Saipan broke and that’s when Rudd officially informed Palacios of the high-profile visit.

The governor added, "We made sure that, to the extent that we could give him all the ground support. Some drivers even from my own PSD was involved and ports police and some od DPS’s own folks that are used to doing this were the ones that escorted the whole diplomatic party."

Palacios never met Assange. He said he did not want to cause any delay in the process. Palacios offered his take on the case and how it impacted Saipan.

"Mr. Assange has been basically incarcerated for 14 years and I tink he paid his dues through those years," he said. "I believe it was a windfall for the Commonwealth, not just for exposure, but in a small role of being the location of putting a closure and justice to this case."