After many years, Wikileaks reports that its founder, Julian Assange, is leaving the United Kingdom after reaching an agreement with American authorities, in which he will plead guilty to criminal charges and be released from prison.
Julian Assange, 52, was charged with conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information.
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For years, the US has argued that Wikileaks' files - which revealed information about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - put lives at risk. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has spent the past five years in British prisons, fighting extradition to the US.
Assange was also accused of rape and sexual assault in Sweden, charges he denied. He spent seven years holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, arguing that the case would lead to his extradition to the United States. In 2019, Swedish authorities dropped the charges, citing the length of time since the initial complaint. However, British authorities arrested and tried him for failing to surrender to the courts for extradition to Sweden.
According to CBS, the BBC's American affiliate, Julian Assange will not spend time in custody in the US and will receive credit for time served in prison in the UK. According to the same source, Assange will return to Australia, as stated in a letter from the Department of Justice.
On X (formerly Twitter), Wikileaks announced that Assange was released from Belmarsh prison on Monday, after 1,901 days. He was then reportedly at Stansted Airport, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK to return to Australia.
A video shared online by Wikileaks appears to show Assange, dressed in jeans and a blue shirt, being driven to Stansted before boarding the plane. The BBC has not been able to independently confirm the authenticity of the video.
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His wife, Stella Assange, thanked his supporters via X “who rallied to make this happen.” Later, on the BBC’s Today programme, she said the days following the US deal had been “intense” and “non-stop”, adding that she had felt “a whirlwind of emotions”.
The deal, which calls for him to plead guilty to one charge under the Espionage, is expected to be finalized in a court in the Northern Mariana Islands on Wednesday, June 26. The remote Pacific islands, a US commonwealth, are much closer to Australia than US federal courts in Hawaii or the mainland.
Stella said she was very limited in what she could say about the agreement before her husband appeared in court. “I don’t want to jeopardize anything,” she said. “The important thing here is that the agreement included time – that if he signed it, he could go free. He will be free when it is signed by a judge.” She noted that the priority for her husband is to “get healthy again,” to be in touch with nature, and for their family to have “time and privacy.”
Stella confirmed that the couple's two children are in Australia with her, but she has not yet revealed to them that she is about to be released. She only told them that they have "a big surprise" in store.
“We were very careful because obviously no one can stop a five-year-old and a seven-year-old from shouting this from the rooftops,” she said. After the ruling, Stella told reporters and supporters that the Biden administration “should distance itself from this shameful prosecution.” U.S. prosecutors had initially wanted to try the Wikileaks founder on 18 charges — mostly under the Espionage Act — related to the release of confidential U.S. military records and diplomatic cables related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Agence France-Presse, citing an Australian government, said the case had “taken too long.” His lawyer, Richard Miller, declined to comment when contacted by CBS. The BBC also contacted his US-based lawyer.
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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and his lawyers have long argued that the case against him was politically motivated. In April, US President Joe Biden said he was considering a request from Australia to drop the case against Assange. The following month, in a victory for Assange, the UK Supreme Court ruled that he could appeal again against his extradition to the US. This allows him to challenge US assurances about how his future trial and whether his right to free speech would be violated.
Wikileaks, founded by Assange in 2006, claims to have published over 10 million documents, in what the US government later called “one of the largest leaks of classified information in the history of the United States.” In 2010, the website published a video from a US military helicopter showing the killing of more than a dozen Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters journalists, in Baghdad.
One of Assange's most prominent associates, US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, was sentenced to 35 years in prison before then-President Barack Obama commuted her sentence in 2017.
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Despite lengthy legal battles, Julian Assange rarely appeared in public and for years was reported to have suffered from health issues, including a minor stroke in prison in 2021.
Source: BBC
