Wikileaks: Julian Assange freed in US plea deal
Following a prolonged legal battle, Wikileaks has announced that its founder, Julian Assange, has departed the UK after striking a deal with US authorities. Under the agreement, Assange, aged 52, will plead guilty to criminal charges related to conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information. This deal ensures his release without serving additional time in US custody, with credit given for his years spent in a British prison fighting extradition.
The US has contended for years that Wikileaks’ disclosures, particularly concerning the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, posed a threat to lives. Assange, who spent the last five years in a British prison, contested extradition to the US. According to CBS, Assange is set to return to Australia, as confirmed by the justice department.
On the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Wikileaks reported that Assange left Belmarsh prison on Monday after 1,901 days of confinement, proceeding to Stansted airport where he departed the UK for Australia. Video footage released by Wikileaks purportedly shows Assange dressed in jeans and a blue shirt, being driven to Stansted before boarding a flight.
Stella Assange, his wife, expressed gratitude to supporters who had rallied behind him throughout the years. The agreement, which includes a guilty plea to one charge, is anticipated to be finalized in a court in the Northern Mariana Islands on June 26. These remote Pacific islands, a US commonwealth, are notably closer to Australia than federal courts in Hawaii or the continental US.
Australia’s government spokesperson conveyed that the case had endured for an excessive duration, echoing sentiments of prolonged legal proceedings. Richard Miller, Assange’s attorney, refrained from commenting on the matter when approached by CBS, while his US-based lawyer was also contacted for comment by the BBC.
Throughout the ordeal, Assange and his legal team maintained that the case against him was politically motivated. In April, US President Joe Biden disclosed that he was reviewing a request from Australia to dismiss the prosecution against Assange.
In a victory the following month, the UK High Court ruled that Assange could bring a new appeal against extradition to the US, allowing him to challenge US assurances over how his prospective trial would be conducted and whether his right to free speech would be infringed.
After the ruling, his wife Stella told reporters and supporters that the Biden administration “should distance itself from this shameful prosecution”.
US prosecutors had originally wanted to try the Wikileaks founder on 18 counts – mostly under the Espionage Act – over the release of confidential US military records and diplomatic messages related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Wikileaks, which Assange founded in 2006, claims to have published over 10 million documents in what the US government later described as “one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States”.
In 2010, the website published a video from a US military helicopter which showed more than a dozen Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters news reporters, being killed in Baghdad.
One of Assange’s most well-known collaborators, US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, was sentenced to 35 years in prison before then-president Barack Obama commuted her sentence in 2017.
Assange also faced separate charges of rape and sexual assault in Sweden, which he denied.
He spent seven years hiding in Ecuador’s London embassy, claiming the Swedish case would lead him to be sent to the US.
Swedish authorities dropped the case in 2019 and said that too much time had passed since the original complaint, but UK authorities later took him into custody. He was tried for not surrendering to the courts to be extradited to Sweden.
Even amid long-running legal battles, Assange has rarely been seen in public and for years has reportedly suffered from poor health, including a small stroke in prison in 2021.
