Assange confesses - goes free after twelve years

 

Julian Assange admits - settles with the US
Will be released after prison time

Elliot Morseth Edvinsson,

TT

Updated 04.02 | Published 01.18

Julian Assange about to board a plane at Stansted Airport in London on Monday, a photo taken by his organization Wikileaks shows. Photo: Wikileaks Via AFP/TT

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, accused of espionage, has pleaded guilty and made a deal with the United States to avoid prison in the country.

His organization says he has already been released from prison.

Under the plea deal, prosecutors will seek a 62-month sentence - which is equivalent to the time Assange spent in a high-security prison in London. This means that Assange would go free.

According to Wikileaks, Assange has already been set free.

"Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh high-security prison on the morning of June 24 after spending 1,901 days there," the organization wrote in a post on X, adding that he had already left Britain by plane.
 

Boarding an airplane

Wikileaks also emphasizes that the negotiations on the release have been going on for a "long period" and emphasizes that the agreement has not yet been formally approved.

His wife Stella Assange has published a short video clip, also via X, where the husband is seen, among other things, boarding a plane.

"Julian is free!!!" writes Stella Assange in the post and thanks everyone who supported her and Wikileaks' fight to get him free.

Where he is at the moment and to which place he should have flown is unclear.

The settlement must be approved by a judge to take effect.

On Wednesday, local time, Assange will appear at a court in the Mariana Islands, which is an American autonomous territory in the Pacific Ocean. In which he will plead guilty to illegally receiving and disseminating classified national defense information, the Justice Department wrote in the legal document.
 

700,000 classified documents

Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks. Photo: Aftonbladet / 3790

Assange has faced up to 175 years in prison in the United States, according to 18 counts of espionage and data breach.

He had been indicted by the US government for his role in the 2010 leak of some 700,000 classified documents related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His supporters see him as a champion of free speech, while critics point out that publications he has made have endangered US security.

Australian Assange has been imprisoned in the British Belmarsh prison in London since April 2019. He was arrested after spending seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden, on suspicion of sex crimes during a visit to Stockholm. The Swedish investigation was closed in 2019.

US President Joe Biden said in April that the US was "considering" a request from Australia to drop the charges against Assange.

Britain approved Assange's extradition back in 2022, but he has since tried to have the decision overturned. He was allowed to appeal the decision in March this year.