Julian Assange freed after plea deal with US

by Mick the Ram

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been released from prison in the UK after a plea deal was sealed with the US government authorities.

This brings an end to a five-year legal saga where Assange faced prosecution in the US over an alleged conspiracy to disclose national defence information, following the publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, obtained from Army Intelligence Analyst Chelsea Manning, on his website back in 2010.

The 52-year-old left high security Belmarsh jail on Monday 24 June where he had been locked away for the past five years (1,901 days) fighting extradition. He headed to Stansted Airport where he boarded a private charter plane.

It is understood that the Australian national has agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal charge of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents and in return he will walk free and return to his home country, after years in self-exile. The deal is expected to be finalised in a court in the remote Pacific Northern Mariana Islands on Wednesday, 26 June.

According to a letter from the Justice Department, Assange will spend no time in US custody and will receive credit for the time spent incarcerated in the UK.

Assange and his lawyers had long claimed that the case against him was politically motivated and in April this year, US President Joe Biden said that he was considering a request from Australia to drop the prosecution.

In a victory the following month, the UK High Court ruled that Assange could bring a new appeal against extradition to the US, allowing him to challenge US assurances over how his prospective trial would be conducted and whether his right to free speech would be infringed.

His wife, Stella Assange, tweeted thanks to his supporters “who have all mobilised for years and years to make this come true”.