Julian Assange has been released from British prison, according to WikiLeaks, the organisation he founded. The outfit uploaded a video of him boarding a flight that left the UK at London’s Stansted airport on Monday evening.
The announcement that Assange was free came shortly after the news that he was set to plead guilty this week to violating US espionage law, in a deal that would allow him to return home to his native Australia. He will appear at a court in Saipan, a US Pacific territory where he will be sentenced to 62 months of time already served.
US prosecutors said in court papers that Assange, 52, has agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents, according to filings in the US district court for the Northern Mariana Islands.
Assange has been hailed by many around the world as a hero who brought to light military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Among the files published by WikiLeaks was a video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.But his reputation was also tarnished by rape allegations, which he has denied.
The guilty plea, which must be approved by a judge, brings an abrupt conclusion to a criminal case of international intrigue and to the US government’s years-long pursuit of a publisher whose hugely popular secret-sharing website made him a cause célèbre among many press freedom advocates who said he acted as a journalist to expose US military wrongdoing. Investigators, by contrast, have repeatedly asserted that his actions broke laws meant to protect sensitive information and put the country’s national security at risk.
Assange was set to be reunited with his wife, Stella, who confirmed on X that “Julian is free!”. She thanked Assange’s supporters, saying “Words cannot express our immense gratitude to YOU- yes YOU, who have all mobilised for years and years to make this come true”.
Julian is free!!!!
— Stella Assange #FreeAssangeNOW (@Stella_Assange) June 25, 2024
Words cannot express our immense gratitude to YOU- yes YOU, who have all mobilised for years and years to make this come true. THANK YOU. tHANK YOU. THANK YOU.
Follow @WikiLeaks for more info soon…pic.twitter.com/gW4UWCKP44
Meanwhile, the Guardian’s world affairs editor wrote that it’s not a clear victory for the freedom of the press.
“US prosecutors argued that Assange was not a proper journalist, but a hacker and an activist with his own agenda, who endangered the lives of US sources and contacts, so the Espionage Act could be applied without harming press freedom. But press and civil liberties advocates took the view that it was irrelevant how Assange was defined. The things he was accused of doing, ‘obtaining and disseminating classified information’, are what national security journalists do for a living.”
“The revelations WikiLeaks published about the Iraq and Afghan wars in 2010, leaked to the organisation by an army intelligence analyst, Chelsea Manning, brought to light possible human rights abuses by the US military in those wars, among other things. They were published by the Guardian and other news organisations on the grounds there was a strong public interest in those secrets being brought to light.”
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 allegations that were later dropped. He fled to Ecuador’s embassy, where he remained for seven years, to avoid extradition to Sweden. He was dragged out of the embassy in 2019 and jailed for skipping bail. He has been in a London jail ever since and has been fighting extradition to the US.
The plea agreement comes months after President Joe Biden said he was considering a request from Australia to drop the US push to prosecute Assange.
Meanwhile Mike Pence, the former US vice-president, criticised the deal, saying it was a “miscarriage of justice”. “There should be no plea deals to avoid prison for anyone that endangers the security of our military or the national security of the United States. Ever.”
In Australia, legislators who fought for Assange’s freedom hailed news of his expected return.
Barnaby Joyce, a former deputy prime minister, told ABC that it was greatly encouraging to see Assange on a plane, but the “finish line” was not yet reached. He said he was “pleased” that the outcome would set “an incredibly strong precedent” that Australians should not be charged by other countries for alleged crimes that are not committed on their soil. “(Extraterritoriality) is a principle, and if you let it lapse for one then it lapses for all,” he was quoted as saying.
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