Julian Assange is free and yesterday left the United Kingdom and the maximum security prison near London where he had been detained for five years. WikiLeaks announced it overnight after the news of the guilty plea agreement reached with the American justice system. Assange was accused of publishing approximately 700,000 classified documents relating to US military and diplomatic activities since 2010.
The guilty plea
Julian Assange is expected to be in the United States tomorrow. Assange, greeted on X in the WikiLeaks account with “Julian Assange is free”, left the London prison where he has been for 5 years on Monday afternoon and boarded a plane at Stansed airport in the British capital. The founder of WikiLeaks has agreed to plead guilty to a single charge for which he should serve 64 months in prison which will however be offset against those already spent in prison, effectively becoming a free man as soon as the agreement reached with the Department of Justice USA will be ratified by a federal judge.
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Assange, new work by Laika dedicated to the journalist in London
Stella Assange: “Thanks to those who mobilized”
“Julian is free!!!!” His wife, Stella Assange, also writes on Facebook. “Words cannot express our immense gratitude to you, yes to you who have mobilized for years and years to make this true. Thank you, thank you, thank you”, she adds. “His ordeal is coming to an end” Julian Assange’s mother also commented, according to Australian media reports, after the news of her release from prison and the agreement reached with the US Department of Justice.
Assange will appear before a judge in the Mariana Islands
Before flying to the US territory of the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific, the plane carrying Julian Assange stopped in Bangkok to refuel. Assange will then travel to the US Pacific Ocean territory where he will appear before a judge tomorrow as part of a plea deal that should give him freedom and the chance to return to his native Australia. The 52-year-old agreed to plead guilty to the single charge of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defense information, according to a document filed in court in the Northern Mariana Islands. He is expected to appear in court Wednesday morning local time.
