Under a deal with the Justice Department that ends an almost 15-year legal battle over his trial, Julian Assange will admit innocent to leaking American national security techniques and return to his native Australia.
Assange, 52, is scheduled to receive a statement equivalent to the more than five times he has already served in a United Kingdom prison on Wednesday during a court appearance in Saipan, the United States ‘ Northern Mariana Islands, avoiding a possibly lengthy prison sentence.
The plea deal attempts to close a global legal battle against Assange that has been ongoing since sensitive military and diplomatic cables, including images of a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad a few years ago, were made public in 2010 and 2011.
” This is the outcome of a worldwide campaign that stretched grass- roots administrators, press freedom politicians, politicians and leaders from across the democratic spectrum, all the way to the United Nations”, Wikileaks said in a statement.
Assange was accused of encouraging and assisting Chelsea Manning in obtaining around 750 000 classified or sensitive documents in one of the biggest state secrets in U.S. history. Manning was found guilty of leaking confidential information in 2013, but then-President Barack Obama commuted her 35-year prison term in 2017.
Assange and Manning unlawfully conspired” to receive and obtain documents, writings, and notes connected with the national defense, including such materials classified up to the SECRET level”, according to a four- page filing by the Justice Department.
They “willfully communicate documents relating to the national defense from persons in unauthorized possession of such documents to persons not entitled to receive,” according to the filing.
Under the Trump administration, the United States criminally charged Assange with breaking the Espionage Act and requested his extradition from the United Kingdom, where he has since been imprisoned. If found guilty on all counts, he could receive a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison, although federal crimes typically have shorter sentences than that. The initial charges, 17 of which were related to espionage and one of which were related to computer misuse, had a maximum sentence of 175 years.
Assange was detained after he had been living in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012 as he attempted to avoid being interrogated in a Swedish sexual assault case. Assange evaded UK police and American prosecutors, but those charges were dropped in 2017. He remained in a small apartment inside the embassy.
National security officials claimed that the leaks represented serious national security threats, while Assange’s supporters claimed the case violated free speech and independent media. Assange and his attorneys fought extradition, claiming that he could not have faced the death penalty and could not have gotten a fair trial in the United States.
The nonprofit media outlet, known for its leaked documents, claimed that WikiLeaks “published groundbreaking stories of government corruption and human rights abuses” and that it held the powerful accountable for their actions. ” As editor- in- chief, Julian paid severely for these principles, and for the people’s right to know”.
After President Joe Biden stated that he was considering a request from the Australian government to reach a deal that would allow Assange to return to Australia, negotiations over a plea deal grew more heated in recent months.
According to a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, the decision was an independent one made by the Justice Department, and there was no White House involvement in the plea deal decision. Questions were directed to the DOJ by the spokesman.
The Australian government declined to comment, saying legal proceedings are ongoing.
Under the plea agreement, Assange will appear in the U. S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands. He will be sentenced right away after serving 62 months in prison in the UK, and then must make his return home.
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( —With assistance from Katharine Gemmell, Ben Westcott, Jennifer Jacobs and Justin Sink. )
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