Wikileaks founder Julian Assange wants to plead guilty as part of an agreement with the US Department of Justice. Following his guilty plea and conviction on espionage charges, he should be allowed to return to his homeland of Australia, according to a letter from the Department of Justice submitted to the court on Monday evening. The court must still approve the agreement, however.
The 52-year-old is charged with 17 counts of espionage and computer misuse for publishing a series of secret US documents on his whistleblower platform Wikileaks almost 15 years ago. The US government has said Assange’s actions went beyond those of a journalist. He published secret government documents that put people’s lives at risk.
Assange’s supporters see him as a journalist protected by the US Constitution who exposed misconduct by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
According to Wikileaks, Assange is now free. Assange has left the high-security prison near London, where he had been incarcerated for five years, and has left Great Britain, the platform said on “X”. A published video showed him boarding a plane.
Assange is now expected to appear in federal court in the Northern Mariana Islands – a U.S. territory in the western Pacific – and plead guilty to illegally obtaining and disseminating classified information about national defense policy, according to the Justice Department letter. The hearing is scheduled to take place on Saipan, the largest island in the Northern Mariana Islands, because Assange refuses to travel to the U.S. mainland, and another reason is its proximity to Australia.
Assange’s expected guilty plea would bring an abrupt end to a legal drama that has been dragging on for years. He has been in London’s high-security Belmarsh prison for five years. Before that, Assange had been hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for years after Swedish authorities tried to arrest him on rape charges.
While in custody in Belmarsh, Assange had fought legally against his extradition to the USA. In May, he won the right to appeal against his transfer. His lawyers had previously stated in court that the USA had given the WikiLeaks founder “blatantly inadequate” assurances that he would enjoy the protection of press freedom guaranteed by the US Constitution if he were extradited to America.
The deal now reached with the US judiciary is said to ensure that Assange pleads guilty and at the same time is spared an additional prison sentence.
