United States prosecutors have reached a settlement Wikileaks founded by Julian Assange The long-controversial publisher is required to plead guilty to one count of espionage for its role in leaking classified documents related to the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The agreement, which comes after more than a decade of efforts by Assange, 52, to avoid extradition from the United Kingdom, will end one of the longest-running national security investigations in US history. The deal was first revealed in court documents made public in Britain.
Assange and his legal team, who have denied the US charges, could not immediately be reached for comment.
“Julian Assange is free,” WikiLeaks wrote in a statement. Posted on X. “He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June after spending 1901 days there.”
A Letter Documents filed by US prosecutors in the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands on Monday indicate Assange will plead guilty at a hearing scheduled for Wednesday in Sapien, the island territory’s capital, as he has refused to travel to the continental US. He is then expected to return to his home country of Australia, having served his expected 62-month sentence in a London prison.
The case against Assange centres on the fact that To publish The case concerns more than 750,000 US documents stolen by WikiLeaks between 2009 and 2011. It has attracted a lot of attention internationally for its obvious implications for press freedom. Organisations such as the Committee to Protect Journalists in the US have warned for years that the case could seriously threaten journalists’ ability to obtain and publish classified information – even though the country’s highest court has long recognised journalists’ right to do so.
Before the 2016 US presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, WikiLeaks released… Published A large portion of emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee. The leak embarrassed the DNC and earned Assange praise from right-wing celebrities. It was later found out The work is that of notorious Russian hacking groups Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, which are affiliated with Moscow’s GRU military intelligence agency.
US prosecutors initially charged Assange Not a single case was filed under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act For allegedly conspiring with Chelsea Manning, who provided WikiLeaks with a treasure trove of classified material relating to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to gain unauthorized access to government computers. Prosecutors later added an additional 17 charges under the Espionage Act—a move widely condemned This was described as an attack on free press.
Assange, Forced removal After seven years of asylum from the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2019, he is being held in London’s Belmarsh prison awaiting the outcome of his extradition hearing, which has been repeatedly postponed during the Covid-19 pandemic. His lawyers argued that due to his deteriorating mental health, extradition to the US would increase his likelihood of suicide.
US prosecutors, on appeal, won permission to extradite the award-winning journalist, who married his longtime partner Stella Moris while in prison, in 2022 by offering a series of written assurances to UK courts. Among other concessions, the US promised not to subject Assange to “special administrative measures,” a term that refers to the practice of wiretapping the phone calls of certain defendants citing national security concerns.
“I believe this phase of our lives is over,” Morris — now Assange — said in a video. pre-recorded last week“I think Julian will be free by next week.”
WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said in the same video recorded outside Belmarsh that he hoped it would be the last time he would see Assange inside the prison walls. “If you’re seeing this, it means he’s out.”
