WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange set to be freed after US espionage charge plea deal
Sydney/Washington, June 25
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is due to plead guilty on Wednesday to violating US espionage law, in a deal that will set him free after a 14-year British legal odyssey and allow his return home to Australia.
Assange, 52, has agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents, according to filings in the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.
The deal marks the end of a legal saga that has seen Assange spend more than five years in a British high-security jail and seven holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London as he fought accusations of sex crimes in Sweden and battled extradition to the US, where he faced 18 criminal charges.
The US government viewed him as a reckless villain who had endangered the lives of agents through WikiLeaks’ mass release of secret US documents. Assange is due to be sentenced to 62 months of time already served at a hearing in Saipan. The US territory was chosen due to Assange’s opposition to travelling to the mainland US. — Reuters
Wikileaks founder’s 14-year-long legal battle
2006 Julian Assange founds WikiLeaks, creating an internet-based “dead letter drop” for leakers of classified or sensitive information.
April 5, 2010 WikiLeaks releases leaked video from a US helicopter showing an air strike that killed civilians in Baghdad.
July 25, 2010 WikiLeaks releases more than 91,000 documents, mostly secret US military reports about the Afghanistan war.
October, 2010 WikiLeaks releases 400,000 classified military files chronicling the Iraq war.
June 11, 2019 The US Justice Department formally asks Britain to extradite Assange to the United States to face charges that he conspired to hack US government computers and violated an espionage law.
June 17, 2022 Britain orders Assange’s extradition to the United States, prompting Assange to appeal.
March 26, 2024
The extradition is put on hold when the court says the US must provide assurances that Assange will not face a potential death penalty.
June 24, 2024
The US Justice Department and Assange reveal a deal in which he will plead guilty to one criminal count and be sentenced to time served.
Assange’s wife Stella ‘elated’
Julian Assange’s wife Stella said on Tuesday she was “elated” and it was “incredible” her husband was set to be freed following a 14-year legal battle. “I’m just elated,” she told BBC Radio. “He will be a free man once it has been signed off by the judge and that will happen sometime tomorrow,” she said. Reuters
PM: Australia wants Assange brought home
Australia Prime Minster Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday he wanted Julian Assange brought back home to Australia as soon as possible. “Regardless of the views that people have about Mr Assange (and) his activities, the case has dragged on for too long,” Albanese said in the country’s parliament. Reuters
Rights advocates welcome his release
London: Free speech organisations welcomed the news of Julian Assange’s release from jail in Britain but said the US case had still set a bad precedent for journalism. Alan Rusbridger, a former editor of Guardian, one of the global titles which worked with WikiLeaks to publish some of the leaked material, said it was “pretty disturbing” that espionage laws were being used to target those who revealed uncomfortable information for states. Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the free speech organisation Knight First Amendment Institute, said the deal meant Assange would have served “five years in prison for activities that journalists engage in every day”. The Committee to Protect Journalists said the prosecution had grave implications for press freedom worldwide. Reuters
