WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been released from Belmarsh prison and flown out of the UK as he prepares to enter a guilty plea as part of a deal with the US Justice Department that could bring an end to his long-running legal saga.
Assange, 52, boarded a flight from the Stansted airport at 5pm UK time on Monday, ahead of an appearance later this week in the federal court in the Mariana Islands, a US commonwealth in the Western Pacific. He was charged with conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information by the US government.
According to a new filing from the DOJ, proceedings in the Mariana Islands are due to take place on Wednesday morning, where Assange will plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information. He is due to be sentenced to 62 months of time already served at a hearing on the island of Saipan at 9am local time.
The charges against Assange in the US stem from one of the largest publications of classified information in American history, which took place during the first term of Barack Obama’s presidency.
Assange was accused by the US government of conspiring with Chelsea Manning, a military intelligence analyst, to disclose tens of thousands of activity reports about the war in Afghanistan.
The documents also included unfiltered US diplomatic cables that potentially endangered confidential sources, Iraq war-related significant activity reports and information related to Guantanamo Bay detainees.
The information leaks occurred from around 2009 to 2011, the documents said.
The information was shared online on Assange’s WikiLeaks website.
The new deal will allow Assange to avoid imprisonment in the US. Prosecutors will seek a 62-month sentence – the same amount of time he has already served in the high-security prison Belmarsh, in London, while fighting extradition to the US.
Last month, he won the right to appeal an extradition order after his lawyers argued that the US government provided “blatantly inadequate” assurances that he would have the same free speech protections as an American citizen if extradited from the UK.
In a post on X, the WikiLeaks account announced that Assange had left Belmarsh on Wednesday after 1,901 days, and had departed on a flight from Stansted airport.
“This is the result of a global campaign that spanned grass-roots organisers, press freedom campaigners, legislators and leaders from across the political spectrum, all the way to the United Nations This created the space for a long period of negotiations with the US Department of Justice, leading to a deal that has not yet been formally finalised,” the statement read.
“After more than five years in a 2x3 metre cell, isolated 23 hours a day, he will soon reunite with his wife Stella Assange, and their children, who have only known their father from behind bars.”
The statement added: “WikiLeaks published groundbreaking stories of government corruption and human rights abuses, holding the powerful accountable for their actions.
“As editor-in-chief, Julian paid severely for these principles, and for the people’s right to know. As he returns to Australia, we thank all who stood by us, fought for us, and remained utterly committed in the fight for his freedom. Julian’s freedom is our freedom.”
A video posted on X by Wikileaks showed Assange dressed in a blue shirt and jeans signing a document before boarding a private jet with the markings of charter firm VistaJet.
“Julian is free!!!!” his wife, Stella Assange, said in a post on X.
“Words cannot express our immense gratitude to YOU - yes YOU, who have all mobilised for years and years to make this come true.”
The plane departed from Stansted on Monday afternoon was headed to Bangkok, FlightRadar24 data shows. A spokesperson for Assange in Australia declined to comment on his flight plans. VistaJet did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Australian government, led by prime minister Anthony Albanese, has been pressing for Assange‘s release but declined to comment on the legal proceedings as they were ongoing.
“Prime minister Albanese has been clear – Mr Assange‘s case has dragged on for too long and there is nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration,” a government spokesperson said.
Prior to his incarceration at Belmarsh, Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2012 and was granted political asylum after courts in England ruled he should be extradited to Sweden as part of a rape investigation in the Scandinavian country.
He was arrested by British police after Ecuador’s government withdrew his asylum status in 2019 and then jailed for skipping bail when he first took shelter inside the embassy. Sweden eventually dropped its sex crimes investigation because so much time had elapsed.
Assange’s family and supporters have said previously that his physical and mental health have suffered massively during more than a decade of legal battles.
If approved by a federal judge, the new plea deal would credit that time served, allowing Assange to immediately return to Australia, his native country.
Assange has been heralded 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.
Assange was indicted during former president Donald Trump’s administration over WikiLeaks’ mass release of secret US documents, which were leaked by Chelsea Manning, a former US military intelligence analyst who was also prosecuted under the Espionage Act.
The charges against Assange sparked outrage among his many global supporters who have long argued that Assange as the publisher of Wikileaks should not face charges typically used against federal government employees who steal or leak information.
Many press freedom advocates have argued that criminally charging Assange represents a threat to free speech.
“A plea deal would avert the worst-case scenario for press freedom, but this deal contemplates that Assange will have served five years in prison for activities that journalists engage in every day,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of free speech organisation Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.
“It will cast a long shadow over the most important kinds of journalism, not just in this country but around the world.”
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.
Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison after being convicted of violating the Espionage Act and other offenses for leaking classified government and military documents to WikiLeaks. President Obama commuted her sentence in 2017, allowing her release after about seven behind bars.
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