The founder of WikiLeaks, who was being prosecuted for revealing hundreds of thousands of confidential documents, reached a plea agreement with the American justice system under the terms of which he will be released after five years of pre-trial detention in the United Kingdom.
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“Julian Assange is free.” The founder of the WikiLeaks organization was able to leave the United Kingdom, where he had been detained since 2019, on Monday June 24. The whistleblower in fact negotiated a guilty plea agreement with the American justice system which demanded his extradition. He was prosecuted for having exposed, starting in 2010, more than 700,000 confidential documents relating to American military and diplomatic activities, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Julian is free!!!!
Words cannot express our immense gratitude to YOU- yes YOU, who have all mobilized for years and years to make this come true. THANK YOU. tHANK YOU. THANK YOU.
Follow @WikiLeaks for more info soon…pic.twitter.com/gW4UWCKP44
— Stella Assange #FreeAssangeNOW (@Stella_Assange) June 25, 2024
JULIAN ASSANGE IS FREE
Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there. He was granted lease by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a…
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 24, 2024
The 52-year-old Australian embhopped onto a private plane at Stansted Airport to appear in federal court in the Mariana Islands, a U.S. Pacific territory. He is now being prosecuted for “conspiracy to obtain and disclose information relating to national defense” and is expected to plead guilty to this charge alone. He is expected to be sentenced to 62 months in prison, already served on remand in London, which would allow him to return free to his native Australia.
This agreement puts an end to a saga of almost 14 years. Julian Assange was fighting not to be handed over to American justice, which is pursuing him for having made public hundreds of thousands of confidential documents, including a video showing civilians, including two journalists from the Reuters agency, killed by gunfire. an American combat helicopter in Iraq in July 2007. He theoretically faced up to 175 years in prison under the Espionage Act.
The Australian government also commented on this outcome, believing that the Assange affair had “dragged on for too long” and that his continued detention no longer presented any interest. “Many have used my son’s situation to promote their own cause”also reacted Christine Assange, the mother of Julian Assange, in a press release.
“I am grateful that my son’s ordeal is finally coming to an end. It shows the importance and power of quiet diplomacy.”
Christine Assange, mother of Julian Assangein a press release
The founder of WikiLeaks was arrested by British police in April 2019 after seven years spent in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in order to avoid extradition to Sweden in a rape investigation, dismissed the same year. His accomplice, the American soldier Chelsea Manning, at the origin of this massive leak, was for her part sentenced in August 2013 to 35 years in prison by a court martial, but was released after seven years after commutation of his sentence. sentence by President Barack Obama.