Julian Assange is free and has left the UK

Julian Assange released! The WikiLeaks founder, who has been held in a high-security prison in London since 2019, has reached a plea deal with the US government. He has pleaded guilty to a felony charge related to his alleged role in one of the largest leaks of classified U.S. government documents. The agreement ends an international row that has been going on for years.

An Australian whistleblower prosecuted by US authorities for revealing hundreds of thousands of classified documents is due to appear in federal court in the Mariana Islands (a US territory near the island of Guam in the Pacific Ocean). The documents include a video from a 2007 US helicopter gunship in Iraq showing civilians, including two Reuters journalists, killed in the fire. Julian Assange is expected to plead guilty to “obtaining and conspiring to disclose information relating to national security”.

In exchange for this plea deal with the US Justice Department, Julian Assange has not been extradited to the US, and prosecutors are seeking “only 62 months in prison”, which is equivalent to the time spent in custody at Belmarsh Prison. In England. He should therefore be released and returned to Australia following a hearing this week.

In 2019 a federal grand jury in Virginia indicted Julian Assange on charges of espionage and computer misuse: what the Justice Department described at the time as one of the largest compromises of classified information in US history.

His case has received widespread support from human rights and press groups, who fear the espionage charges against Assange will undermine press freedom. In June 2022, the British government approved his extradition to the United States, but in a recent appeal Assange won the right to challenge the ruling in British courts.

Since his arrest in April 2019 after seven years at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, Assange has been at the center of a complex legal battle involving several countries and has repeatedly called on US President Joe Biden to drop the charges against him.

The Australian government has announced relief. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the years-long case did not benefit anyone by keeping Assange in custody. The stance underscores Australia's efforts to see Assange return to his homeland after a long period of controversy and international legal battles.

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