WAshington— WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will plead guilty to a criminal charge in a deal with the U.S. Department of Justice that will free him from prison and resolve a long legal saga that spanned several continents and centered on the publication of a trove of confidential documentsaccording to court documents filed Monday night.
Assange is expected to appear in federal court in the Mariana Islands, a U.S. community in the Western Pacific, to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to illegally obtain and disclose classified national defense information, the Justice Department said in a letter presented in section.
The guilty plea, which must be approved by a judge, brings an abrupt conclusion to a criminal case of international intrigue and the U.S. government’s years-long pursuit of a publisher whose hugely popular secret-sharing website has made him a cause célèbre among many journalists. freedom advocates who said he acted as a journalist to expose U.S. military wrongdoing. Investigators, on the contrary, have repeatedly stated that his actions violated laws designed to protect sensitive information and put the country’s national security at risk.
He is expected to return to Australia following his plea and sentencing, which is scheduled for Wednesday morning local time on Saipan, the largest island in the Mariana Islands. The hearing is taking place there due to Assange’s opposition to traveling to the US mainland and the court’s proximity to Australia.
The agreement ensures that Assange will admit guilt while sparing him any additional prison time. He had spent years hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London after Swedish authorities requested his arrest on rape charges before he was arrested in the UK.
Prosecutors agreed to a sentence equivalent to the five years Assange already spent in a maximum security British prison as he fought to avoid extradition to the United States to face charges, a process that played out in a series of hearings in London. Last month, he won the right to appeal an extradition order after his lawyers argued that the US government provided “blatantly inadequate” assurances that he would have the same free speech protections as a US citizen if extradited from Britain.
He is expected to return to Australia following his plea and sentencing, which is scheduled for Wednesday morning local time on Saipan, the largest island in the Mariana Islands. The hearing is taking place there due to Assange’s opposition to traveling to the US mainland and the court’s proximity to Australia.
Assange has been heralded by many around the world as a hero who brought military errors in Iraq and Afghanistan to light. Among the files published by WikiLeaks was a video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by US forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.
But his reputation was also tarnished by rape allegations, which he denied.
The Justice Department indictment unsealed in 2019 accused Assange of encouraging and aiding US Army Intelligence Analyst Chelsea Manning stealing diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks published in 2010. Prosecutors accused Assange of harming national security by publishing documents that harmed the US and its allies and helped its adversaries.
The case was criticized by press defenders and Assange supporters. Federal prosecutors defended him as targeting conduct that went far beyond that of a journalist collecting information, amounting to an attempt to indiscriminately solicit, steal and publish confidential government documents. The lawsuit was filed even though the Obama administration’s Justice Department had dropped out of prosecuting him years earlier.
Plea agreement arrives months later President Joe Biden said it was considering a request from Australia to drop US pressure to prosecute Assange.
Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison after being convicted of violating the Espionage Act and other crimes by leaking confidential government and military documents to WikiLeaks. President Barack Obama commuted his sentence in 2017, allowing his release after about seven behind bars.
Assange made headlines in 2016 after his website published Democratic emails that prosecutors say were stolen by Russian intelligence agents. He was never charged in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, but the inquiry revealed in detail the role the hacking operation played in interfering in that year’s election on behalf of then-Republican candidate Donald Trump.
Justice Department officials considered charges against Assange after the documents were released in 2010, but were unsure whether the case would hold up in court and were concerned that it would be difficult to justify charging him with journalist-like acts. conventional.
The stance changed, however, in the Trump administration, with former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in 2017, considering Assange’s arrest a priority.
Assange’s family and supporters said his physical and mental health suffered during more than a decade of legal battles, which includes seven years spent at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
Assange took refuge in Embassy of Ecuador in London in 2012 and was granted political asylum after courts in England ruled he should be extradited to Sweden as part of a rape investigation in the Scandinavian country. He was arrested by British police after the Ecuadorian government withdrew his asylum status in 2019 and then arrested for failing to pay bail when he first took shelter inside the embassy.
Although Sweden eventually dropped its sex crimes investigation because too much time had already passed, Assange remained in London’s maximum security Belmarsh prison during the extradition battle with the US.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
