WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange has been released from a British prison and will be able to return to his native Australia after pleading guilty to illegally disseminating national security material in the United States. A surprising new report has emerged. NBC News.
court documents Submit on Monday The U.S. federal government in the Northern Mariana Islands has suggested a plea deal is imminent. new york times Please note that everything still has to be approved by a judge. Assange was previously sentenced to 170 years in prison.
Why were court documents filed in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Pacific Ocean? According to Associated PressThis is because Assange “is opposed to traveling to the US mainland and the courts are close to Australia.”
The 52-year-old has been imprisoned at Belmarsh Prison in London for the past five years. This period followed Assange’s years of hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy when he first applied for asylum in 2012. He was dragged out of the embassy by British authorities. April 2019.
“Julian Assange is free,” the WikiLeaks 8 PM ET. “He left Belmarsh Maximum Security Prison on the morning of June 24 after spending 1901 days there. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released from Stansted Airport in the afternoon before departing for the UK on a plane.”
WikiLeaks also released a video of Assange, embedded below, showing him reading the dossier and boarding a flight to the Northern Mariana Islands to formally respond to his claims.
The Times explained that senior Justice Department officials could accept the conviction because Assange had already served five years in Britain and was awaiting extradition to the United States.
The first charges against Assange were filed by the U.S. Justice Department under President Donald Trump in 2019, despite Trump frequently saying how much he likes WikiLeaks. Trump did not pardon Assange before leaving office, something many Assange supporters have insisted the former president would do.
Assange faces 18 charges of violating the Espionage Act, along with charges related to hacking offences, but the Times reports he will plead guilty to only one charge. Assange reportedly instructed whistleblower Chelsea Manning on how to access classified computers, which experts have argued is a differentiating factor that makes his actions more serious than ordinary journalists simply disseminating sensitive information.
Some of the documents were published by WikiLeaks in 2011 under the name “Collateral Murders.” 2007 video It shows that US troops in Iraq have killed several civilians, including two Reuters journalists.
This plea deal will put an end to an incredibly long saga that has engulfed Assange for over a decade now. However, it is unclear whether the WikiLeaks founder will return to work immediately. Assange started out as a celebrity among left-wing and liberal circles in the early 2010s, but began receiving support from the political right in 2016 after pushing conspiracy theories supporting Donald Trump.
Julian’s wife, Stella Assange, along with WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson, released a statement suggesting that Julian had actually been shot shortly before his release.
“I have just been released from Belmarsh Prison and what I hope is my last visit to Julian in this prison where he has spent five years, two months and two weeks. And if you’re seeing this, that means he’s out.” Hrafnsson says in the video.
Stella Assange said a crowdfunding campaign would be launched to help with Julian’s “recovery” and medical costs.
The Australian government and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have repeatedly appealed to the White House for Assange’s release, but it was unclear whether President Joe Biden would intervene in the case. Assange is known to be suffering from various health problems in prison, but in a short video released by WikiLeaks, he appears to be noticeably healthy.
