The Julian Assange Saga Comes to an Abrupt End as He Heads to Australia
After spending a combined 12 years in a British prison and self-exile, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange boarded a flight to his hearing in US territory in the Pacific. The controversial computer expert, publisher, and uncompromising free speech advocate then walked out a free man and has departed for his home country, Australia, abruptly ending the decade-plus-long extradition-cum-press freedom case.
- The US government agreed to a plea agreement with Julian Assange on June 26 at the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.
- The controversial computer expert, publisher, and uncompromising free speech advocate has departed for his home country, Australia, as a free man, abruptly ending the decade-plus-long extradition-cum-press freedom case.
After spending a combined 12 years in a British prison and in self-exile, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange walked as a free man to board a flight to his family in Australia. The idealistic hacker pleaded guilty to the US government, accepting his guilt of one criminal charge of obtaining and disclosing the country’s classified national defense documents.
Assange spent seven years at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London before his arrest in April 2019. After his asylum was revoked, he was apprehended and transferred to the Belmarsh maximum security prison in London, where he spent over five years.
Assange was sentenced by a judge of the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands (a US territory in the Pacific) in Saipan to five years (1901 days) as part of the deal for admitting guilt under the Espionage Act, something he believes is at odds with the First Amendment.
“I believe the First Amendment and the Espionage Act are in contradiction with each other, but I accept that it would be difficult to win such a case, given all the circumstances,” Assange said to the judge in the presence of the Australian ambassador to the U.S., Kevin Rudd.
Nevertheless, having already served the term in the United Kingdom, he won’t fly to the continental US to serve the 62 months he was sentenced for publishing nearly 750,000 documents that exposed the government’s actions during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
The judge called Assange’s prison term of 62 months “fair and reasonable and proportionate” to army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning’s prison term. Manning, who collaborated with Assange to publish hundreds of thousands of documents on WikiLeaks, was handed 35 years in prison. In January 2017, almost seven years after her arrest and incarceration, Manning’s sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama.
“We appreciate the Court accommodating these plea and sentencing proceedings on a single day at the joint request of the parties, in light of the defendant’s opposition to traveling to the continental United States to enter his guilty plea and the proximity of this federal US District Court to the defendant’s country of citizenship, Australia, to which we expect he will return at the conclusion of the proceedings,” Matthew J. McRenzie, deputy chief, Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, US Department of Justice, National Security Division in a court filing in Saipan.
At the time of his arrest, Assange was originally indicted on 18 counts, 17 of which carried a maximum sentence of 10 years, while one carried a maximum sentence of five years, equating to 175 years in prison.
The US government’s extradition request was rejected by Britain’s High Court judges over the possibility that Assange might be treated harshly and thus consider suicide.
The Australian hacker has emerged as a dividing figure. Press freedom advocates consider him a champion of free speech, while the military and other security personnel criticize his actions as detrimental to individual safety.
“This is the result of a global campaign that spanned grass-roots organizers, 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 finalized. We will provide more information as soon as possible,” WikiLeaks posted on X.
Assange has also been accused of rape and alleged molestation by two Swedish women. Further, the Mueller Report identifies WikiLeaks’ role in influencing the 2016 presidential elections, which by publishing Democrats’ emails helped the Republicans and Donald Trump to win that year.
Assange is not permitted to enter the United States without permission.
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