WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will testify before a human rights committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on October 1, WikiLeaks said, adding this would be his first public speech after he was released from a UK prison in June.

"On October 1, Julian Assange will arrive in Strasbourg to give evidence before the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) which is scheduled to meet from 8.30am to 10am [06:30-08:00 GMT] at the Palace of Europe … He will give testimony before the committee, which will also hear the findings that his imprisonment was politically motivated," WikiLeaks said in a statement on X.

The move comes after PACE released an inquiry report into the Assange case that confirmed that he qualified as a political prisoner and called on the United Kingdom to conduct an independent review into whether the whistleblower was exposed to inhuman or degrading treatme