Julian Assange’s long legal battle for freedom is nearing its end. The founder of Wikileaks left the United Kingdom, where for the last 5 years he had been detained in a maximum security prison near London, after reaching a plea agreement with the United States, which wanted his extradition. According to the US Department of Justice in a letter filed in court, the agreement requires Assange to plead guilty to charges of conspiring to illegally obtain and disseminate classified national defense information under the Espionage Act, and to this will be sentenced to 5 years, i.e. the equivalent of the detention already served in prison in London. So he will be able to return to freedom in Australia, his country of origin. The agreement must be validated by a US federal judge. For this reason, Assange is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday morning in Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the western Pacific. Prosecutors reported that the choice of this location for the hearing was dictated by two elements: Assange’s opposition to traveling to the continental US and the island’s proximity to Australia. Charter flight VJT199 with Assange on board made a technical stop in Bangkok, Thailand, for refueling, before departing for the Mariana Islands.
“I’m euphoric,” said his wife Stella Assange, a lawyer, speaking to the BBC. The two married in prison in 2022 and the woman said that in the last 72 hours it was not clear whether the agreement would go through or not, and that she still cannot believe that it is true. “He will be a free man once the judge signs the agreement,” said Stella Assange, reporting that her husband’s flight from the UK to Australia will cost around half a million dollars, which will have to be repaid by the Australian government and for this will be launched a fundraiser. The operation costs 520 thousand dollars, as his wife explains: «Julian’s journey to freedom has an enormous cost: Julian will have to return 520,000 dollars to the Australian government for the charter flight VJ199. He was not allowed to fly on commercial airlines or on routes to Saipan and then Australia. Every contribution, big or small, is greatly appreciated,” the message reads.
Read also: Wikileaks, Assange is free: plea deal with the USA and return to Australia
Kristinn Hrafnsson, editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, said the deal for Assange was reached after increasing involvement from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The latter, speaking in Parliament, specified that an Australian envoy accompanied Assange from London and underlined that, «regardless of the opinions one has on Assange’s activities, the case has dragged on for too long. There is nothing to be gained from his continued incarceration and we want him brought home to Australia.”
The plea agreement brings to the conclusion of an international case which saw on the one hand the United States attempting to obtain the extradition of the founder of Wikileaks for having published confidential documents (diplomatic cables and army documents), on the other hand Assange taking refuge for 7 years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, before serving 5 years in prison near the British capital, with press freedom activists deeming Assange the victim of political persecution because he acted as a journalist to bring to light news of interest public. All this was intertwined with accusations of rape and harassment against Assange in Sweden, which he has always denied.
