After a 14-year battle against extradition to the United States, Julian Assange, co-founder of WikiLeaks, is free. In a final attempt to secure his freedom, an anonymous Bitcoiner donated over eight Bitcoins, worth $500,000, to help Assange’s family pay off debt incurred for travel and settlement expenses.
On June 24, Assange was released from Belmarsh Maximum Security Prison in the United Kingdom after reaching a plea agreement with the United States. Shortly after his release, he left London airport on a private plane for the American territory of Saipan in the Pacific.
On June 26, Assange appeared at large in a Saipan district court, where he pleaded guilty to violating the US Espionage Act by disclosing classified documents. The trip was planned to prevent Assange from setting foot on American soil.
Bitcoiner contributes to Julian Assange’s final flight to freedom
In an interview, Stella Assange, wife of Julian Assange, stated that “freedom has a cost”. Julian Assange must pay $520,000 to the Australian government for the rental “forced” of flight VJ199 to go to Saipan and Australia.
Stella has started a crowdfunding page to help the incarcerated founder deal with debts after his return to Australia.
The donation link was posted by Stella Assange on June 25th and, within 10 hours, an anonymous Bitcoiner contributed over 8 BTC, almost reaching the $520,000 goal. It has also received over 300,000 British pounds ($380,000) in fiat donations so far.
This single donation in Bitcoin was the largest donation to the fund and larger than all other donations in all currencies combined. Thanks to this collection, Assange will arrive in Australia debt-free.
Assange pleads guilty and leaves court a free man
On June 26, Assange appeared in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands and pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to obtain and disclose classified U.S. national defense documents.
District Judge Ramona Manglona sentenced Assange to five years and two months in prison after pleading guilty to espionage.
However, Assange has already served exactly that amount of time in prison in the UK as he fought extradition. As a result, he walked out of the courtroom a free man.
Assange then took a private flight and arrived in Canberra at 09:39 UTC.
Assange has argued that the Espionage Act, under which he was charged, conflicts with his First Amendment rights to the United States Constitution.
However, he acknowledged that encouraging sources to provide classified information for publication could be illegal. As part of the plea agreement, he was required to destroy all classified information provided to WikiLeaks.
