WikiLeaks CEO Julian Assange freed from jail following a US plea agreement

Assange to admit guilt to one charge of espionage. He will then go back to Australia after years of fighting US extradition.

By Al Jazeera

Jun 25, 2024 12:09 PM

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been freed from prison in the United Kingdom and is expected to travel home to Australia after he agreed to plead guilty to a single charge of breaching the espionage law in the United States.

Assange 52-year-old Julian Assange will confess to a single crime of conspiracy get and release classified US national defence documents, as per an application filed with the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.

He was released from the UK’s top-security Belmarsh prison last Monday, and transported to the airport from which he flew out into the United Kingdom. Assange is scheduled to appear in an insanity court in Saipan which is an US Pacific territory, at 9am on Wednesday (23:00 GMT on Tuesday) and will be sentenced for 60 months of time already executed.

“Julian Assange is free,” WikiLeaks declared in a statement about X.

“He was released from Belmarsh the maximum-security prison in the morning of June 24 after having been imprisoned for the equivalent of 1901 days in the prison. His bail was approved by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport in the afternoon, from where he took a flight and left for the UK.”

A video uploaded via X by WikiLeaks shows Julian Assange Assange dressed in a blue blazer and jeans signing a document prior to taking off on a private jet.

He is expected to return to Australia following the hearing, according to the WikiLeaks statement stated in reference to the hearing held in Saipan.

The plane that carried Assange was spotted at Bangkok on Tuesday, to replenish its fuel prior to flying to the WikiLeaks director to US territory.

Stella Assange’s wife stated that they were “elated” and it was “incredible” that her husband was set to be released.

“He will be a free man once it has been signed off by the judge and that will happen sometime tomorrow,” she added in a telephone interview from Australia.

Julian Assange boards flight at London Stansted Airport at 5PM (BST) Monday June 24th. This is for everyone who worked for his freedom: thank you.#FreedJulianAssange pic.twitter.com/Pqp5pBAhSQ

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 25, 2024

“We will be seeking a pardon, obviously, but the fact that there is a guilty plea, under the Espionage Act, in relation to obtaining and disclosing national defence information is obviously a very serious concern for journalists,” she said to that to the Reuters media agency.

Assange gained prominence after the creation of WikiLeaks in 2006, which was an online whistleblower platform that allows users to share classified information such as videos and documents anonymously.

Video footage of a US Apache helicopter strike in Baghdad which claimed the lives of 12 people as well as two journalists increased the profile of the platform and the release in 2010 in 2010 of hundreds of thousand of classified US documents concerning the conflicts within Afghanistan and Iraq along with an abundance of diplomatic cables, boosted its status.

“Holding the powerful accountable”

WikiLeaks published information on a number of nations however the US under the administration of the former president Donald Trump, that decided to be able to charge him in the year 2019 for 17 charges of violating the Espionage Act.

US lawyers had claimed that the defendant was a co-conspirator in a conspiracy with Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the army, who was sentenced to seven years in prison for leaking documents to WikiLeaks. She was released when Obama commuted her sentence in 2017. Barack Obama commuted her sentence in the year 2017.

The accusations sparked anger, with Assange’s advocates asserting that, as editor and publisher of WikiLeaks Assange should not be facing charges normally used against employees of the government who leak or steal information.

Advocates for freedom of expression, however they argued that a criminal prosecution of Assange could be an attack on free speech.

“WikiLeaks published groundbreaking stories of government corruption and human rights abuses, holding the powerful accountable for their actions,” WikiLeaks announced in a statement that announced the plea deal.

“As editor-in-chief Julian was a heavy price for these values as well as for the people’s right to be informed. As he travels back to Australia We are grateful to all who stood with us, stood up to protect us and was totally committed to fighting against his own freedom.”

Assange was first detained in London in 2010 for an Swedish warrant relating to sexual assault allegations. He was granted bail until the extradition process, Assange took refuge in Ecuador’s Embassy located in London in 2012, after an appeals court ordered that he be deported to Sweden to be tried.

He was detained for the following seven years inside the tiny embassy, and during that time Swedish police removed the rape allegations and then UK police were able to arrest him for violating the bail conditions. Assange was in a prison in the UK while the US extradition proceedings were going through the court.

The plea deal on Monday is a result of pressure mounting for US the president Joe Biden to drop the long-running case against Assange.

On February 1, the federal government of Australia issued an official request to this effect, and Biden declared he was considering it, thereby boosting the hopes of Assange’s supporters that his case would end. In the meantime the Australian government claimed that the case was “dragged on for too long”.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday Albanese said he’d like Assange to return to Australia as soon as he could.

“Regardless of the views that people have about Mr Assange [and] his activities, the case has dragged on for too long,” Albanese told parliament.

“There is nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration and we want him brought home to Australia.”

“The power of quiet diplomacy”

In the meantime, Assange’s mom Christine in a statement made to Australian media, said that she was happy for the fact that the daughter’s “ordeal is finally coming to an end”.

“This shows the importance and power of quiet diplomacy,” she said in a statement broadcast by the public broadcaster ABC as well as other media.

Jodie Ginsberg as the chief executive officer of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said to Al Jazeera she was “delighted” over The Guardian’s anticipated release.

“If Julian had been extradited to the US and prosecuted under the Espionage Act … it would have had serious implications for journalists globally who seek information in the public interest, classified documents, and who then publish them in the public interest,” she stated on the phone from New York.

“Remember that, naturally, that Julian isn’t an US citizen. The Julian has been an Australian citizen, and if Julian had been deported into the US and was convicted it could have been the case journalists everywhere who wanted to share information on human rights violations, like WikiLeaks did, may be in the same way like the US did for Julian.”

She also said the plea deal was a means that officials of the Biden administration to show some sanity with the increasing pressure to free Assange in particular from Australia.

“They (the Biden administration] are in entered a guilty plea to an indictment however, it’s only a single criminal charge, naturally and not the 18 the defendant was charged with and could have seen Julian facing 175 years total in prison. The good news is that Julian is now free to return to his country of birth and is now in a position to spend more moments with his loved ones as well as his beloved ones.”

In Australia lawmakers who have fought for Assange’s release also were pleased to hear of his anticipated return.

Barnaby Joyce, who was a ex-Deputy Prime Minister stated to ABC the news that it was extremely inspiring to witness Assange in a plane but warned not to assume that there was a “finish line” was not yet crossed.

A National Party legislator added that he was “pleased” that the outcome could create “an incredibly strong precedent” in which Australians are not being in the hands of other countries for crimes they believe were in no way committed within their own soil.

“[Extraterritoriality] is a principle, and if you let it lapse for one then it lapses for all,” he was quoted as saying.

Australian Greens Senator David Shoebridge said he was eager to welcome Assange back to Australia.

“Let’s be clear, Julian Assange should never have been charged with espionage in the first place or had to make this deal,” Shoebridge declared.

“[He] has spent years in jail for the crime of showing the world the horrors of the US war in Iraq and the complicity of governments like Australia and that is why he has been punished.”