The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, has settled with the United States, admitting to having committed a crime linked to the disclosure of confidential American documents. The agreement was closed with the Department of Justice and will allow him to avoid prison in the United States and to go to Australia, his country of origin. Under the deal, prosecutors will seek a 62-month sentence, the equivalent of the time Assange spent in a maximum security prison in London as he fought a U.S. extradition request. In this way the sentence is considered extinguished. If he had been found guilty on all 18 charges against him in the 2019 indictment, Assange would have faced up to 175 years in prison. The final green light for the agreement will require the approval of a federal judge.
In 2010 WikiLeaks published hundreds of thousands of classified US military documents on Washington’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – the largest such security breach in US military history – along with a series of diplomatic cables, or videos such as the one in 2007 in which a US Apache helicopter fired on suspected insurgents in Iraq, killing a dozen people, including two Reuters journalists.
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Garrison for Julian Assange in front of the Pantheon yesterday 19 May 2024
Assange was indicted during the Trump administration for publishing secret documents leaked by Chelsea Manning, a former U.S. military intelligence analyst who was also prosecuted under the Espionage Act. Assange was first arrested in Britain in 2010 on a European arrest warrant, after Swedish authorities said they wanted to question him over sex crime charges, which were later dropped. He took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy, where he remained for seven years, to avoid extradition to Sweden. In 2019 he was dragged out of the embassy and jailed for skipping bail. Since then he has been in the maximum security Belmarsh prison in London, from where he has been fighting extradition to the United States for almost five years.
London: demonstration for Julian Assange in front of the court, his wife Stella also among the participants
The plea deal comes months after President Joe Biden said he was considering Australia’s request to no longer prosecute Assange. An Australian government spokesperson neither confirmed nor denied the plea agreement, but said that: “Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been clear: Mr Assange’s case has dragged on too long and there is nothing to be gained from his continued incarceration”.
Before flying to the American territory of the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific, the plane carrying Julian Assange will stop in Bangkok to refuel: a senior Thai official announced today. He is expected to appear in court Wednesday morning.
Thanks to the supporters of Stella Moris (wife of Julian Assange) and Kristinn Hrafnsson editor-in-chief of Wikileaks:
