WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who was held in Britain and published many classified documents about US crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, has announced that he has left the UK following an agreement with the US allowing his release.
He has pleaded guilty to a single charge and will not face prison time in the United States.
According to the agreement, Assange will appear in court and plead guilty to conspiracy to obtain and disclose classified US defense documents. The agreement, in which the 52-year-old Assange will accept the single charge, is due to be concluded in a US court in the Northern Mariana Islands on Wednesday, June 26.
Assange is expected to receive a 62-month sentence but is not expected to serve any prison time in the United States in exchange for time spent in Britain under the agreement.
The Australian government has not issued a detailed statement about Assange’s possible release. A Downing Street spokesman said the government was aware of “planned legal proceedings in the United States against Australian national Julian Assange”.
1,901 days spent in a 2×3 metre cell
In a WikiLeaks post
The post states that Assange left the UK on a flight from Stansted Airport and returned to Australia. In a video shared by WikiLeaks, Assange, dressed in jeans and a blue shirt, can be seen being taken to Stansted Airport to board the flight.
Confirming Assange’s eventual release, his wife, Stella Assange, also took to social media to thank supporters who had rallied on their behalf over the years, saying: “Words cannot express how grateful I am to you all for working so many years to make this happen.”
Assange’s mother, Christine, welcomed the developments, saying she was “grateful that my son’s ordeal is finally over. This shows the importance and power of quiet diplomacy.”
Mr Assange’s father described the development as “fantastic” and said: “Julian will now be free to return to Australia. I’d like to thank all of his supporters who have made this possible.”
There is also a reaction…
Assange’s release came as a relief to his followers, but there are concerns that even if he is convicted of just one crime, it could have a devastating and long-lasting impact on investigative and national security journalism.
“This agreement provides for Mr. Assange to spend five years in prison for the activities that journalists do every day,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which advocates for press freedom.
“These consequences could have a negative impact on journalism not only in this country but around the world.”
Meanwhile, former US Vice President Mike Pence also criticised the agreement as “unfair”.
“We should not enter into any agreements with those who endanger the safety of our military or the national security of the United States,” Pence said in a post on Twitter.
Faces harassment and sexual assault allegations
Assange, who has spent the past five years in a British prison, and his lawyers have long argued that the cases against him are politically motivated.
One of Assange’s most prominent associates, U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, was sentenced to 35 years in prison until then-President Barack Obama commuted her sentence in 2017.
Assange also faces separate rape and sexual assault charges in Sweden, which he denies. He claimed he would be extradited to the United States if he went to Sweden, so he instead applied for political asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he spent seven years.
Swedish authorities dropped the case in 2019, saying too much time had passed since the original charges were laid, but he remained in custody in Britain, where he faces trial for failing to surrender to a court for extradition to Sweden.
Assange has rarely appeared in public throughout his lengthy legal battle. He has reportedly had long-standing health problems, including suffering a stroke in prison in 2021.
Biden gives signal in April
US prosecutors wanted to try the WikiLeaks founder on 18 separate charges, mostly under the Espionage Act, for publishing classified US military records and diplomatic messages related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. WikiLeaks, which Assange founded in 2006, claims to have published more than 10 million documents in what the US government later described as “one of the largest leaks of classified information in American history.”
The United States has long maintained that WikiLeaks files about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars put some lives at risk. U.S. President Joe Biden said in April he was considering a request by Australia to drop the investigation into Assange.
Who is Julian Assange?
Assange rose to fame as a computer programmer in his youth and was convicted of computer hacking in his native Australia in 1995 but was not jailed after promising not to do it again.
He founded the WikiLeaks website in 2006. WikiLeaks claims to have published more than 10 million secret documents, including official reports related to war, espionage and corruption.
WikiLeaks released footage taken from a US military helicopter showing the moment 18 civilians were killed in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2010.
Additionally, thousands of classified documents leaked by former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning were also published by WikiLeaks.
The documents show that U.S. forces killed hundreds of civilians during the Afghanistan war, but these were not included in official reports.
In 2019, the US Department of Justice described the breach as “one of the largest leaks of classified information in the country’s history.”
Lawyers for U.S. officials said the release of the information would put those named in Afghanistan and Iraq “at risk of serious harm, torture or even death.”
Assange, meanwhile, stressed that the files reveal serious violations by the US military and that the case against him is politically motivated.
He was charged with conspiring to hack into a military database to obtain classified information and was ordered to stand trial on 18 counts.
