Assange will plead guilty to a spying charge and return home to Australia after decades of fighting US extradition.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been released from prison in the United Kingdom and is on his way home to Australia after agreeing to plead guilty to a single charge of violating US espionage law.
Assange, 52, will plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose classified U.S. national defense documents, according to a document filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.
He was released from Belmarsh maximum security prison in the UK on Monday and taken to the airport from where he flew out of the country. Assange will appear in court in the US Pacific territory Saipan at 9am on Wednesday (11pm GMT Tuesday) where he will be sentenced to 62 months of the already served sentence.
“Julian Assange is free,” Wikileaks said in a statement published on X.
“He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of June 24, having spent 1,901 days there. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stanstead Airport in the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK.”
“Julian is free!!!!” wife Stella wrote on X. “Words cannot express our immense gratitude to YOU – yes, YOU, who rallied for years and years to make this a reality. THANKS. THANK YOU THANK YOU.
Julian Assange boards his flight at London Stansted Airport at 5pm (BST) on Monday 24 June. This is for everyone who worked for your freedom: thank you.#FreedJulianAssange pic.twitter.com/Pqp5pBAhSQ
-WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 25, 2024
Assange rose to prominence with the launch of Wikileaks in 2006, creating an online reporting platform for people to submit confidential material, such as documents and videos, anonymously.
Footage of a US Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two journalists, raised the platform’s profile, while the 2010 release of hundreds of thousands of classified US documents about the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq, as well as a trove of diplomatic cables, cemented his reputation.
‘Responsibility of the powerful’
Wikileaks has published material about many countries, but it was the US, during the administration of former US President Donald Trump, that decided to charge him in 2019 with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act.
American lawyers argued that he conspired with Chelsea Manning, a former army intelligence analyst who spent seven years in prison for leaking material to WikiLeaks. She was released when US President Barack Obama commuted her sentence in 2017.
The accusations have sparked outrage, with Assange’s supporters arguing that as publisher and editor-in-chief of Wikileaks, he should not have faced charges typically used against government officials who steal or leak information.
Press freedom advocates, however, argued that criminally charging Assange was a threat to freedom of expression.
“WikiLeaks published groundbreaking stories of government corruption and human rights abuses, holding the powerful accountable for their actions,” Wikileaks said in its statement announcing the plea deal.
“As editor-in-chief, Julian paid dearly for these principles and for people’s right to know. As we return to Australia, we thank everyone who stood by us, fought for us and remained fully committed to the fight for their freedom.”
Assange was first arrested in London in 2010, based on a Swedish warrant accusing him of sexual assault. Released on bail pending his extradition case, Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2012 after a court ruled he could be sent to Sweden for trial.
He spent the next seven years at the small embassy – during which Swedish police dropped rape charges – before UK police arrested him on charges of violating his bail conditions.
Assange was being held in prison in the UK while the US extradition case worked its way through the courts.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
