WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is set to go free after agreeing to a plea deal with the United States.
Assange is expected to plead guilty to one count of conspiring to obtain and disclose national defence information, according to documents filed in the American courts.
The Washington Post reports that criminal information documents such as those filed in Assange’s case are often indicators that a defendant is set to plead guilty. He is set to face a US courtroom in the Northern Mariana Islands, just under 4,000km from Assange’s hometown of Townsville.
He is expected to be given a 62-month sentence, which will credit the time he has spent in Belmarsh Prison in the United Kingdom fighting extradition to the United States and see him walk free.
Assange rose to international prominence in 2010 after publishing leaked documents from US Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning, including footage of US airstrikes in Baghdad, military logs from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and diplomatic cables. The release of the classified material was the largest of its kind in US military history — amounting to more than 700,000 documents.
In 2016, Assange published emails that Russian government hackers had stolen from Democratic Party servers that were seen as an attempt to disrupt the American presidential election of that year.
Assange was charged by American authorities in 2019, almost a decade after publishing the classified material in question. He initially faced 18 criminal counts under the country’s Espionage Act, which carried penalties of up to 175 years in prison.
He had previously faced a European arrest warrant from Swedish authorities over an alleged sexual assault, which he had denied and for which the charges were later dropped.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has previously spoken about his “frustration” in relation to Assange’s years-long fight against extradition to the United States, having said that the country shared his view that “enough is enough”.
Albanese said in May that the Australian government was working closely with the American government on a resolution.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has been contacted for comment.
Written in association with AAP.
