three questions on the agreement concluded between the founder of WikiLeaks and justice

The 52-year-old Australian had been detained in a British prison for five years, after taking refuge for seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Prosecuted for exposing hundreds of thousands of confidential American documents, Julian Assange left the United Kingdom aboard a plane on Monday June 24. The 52-year-old Australian negotiated a guilty plea agreement with the American justice system. He has been incarcerated since 2019 in a high security prison near the British capital, after spending seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, in order to avoid extradition.

Julian Assange is now being prosecuted on a single charge (“conspiracy to obtain and disclose information relating to national defense”). Under this agreement, he must be able to return free to Australia and his loved ones. Franceinfo looks back at the end of a legal procedure lasting almost fourteen years.

1What is the context of this agreement?

The agreement comes as Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called for an end to the imprisonment of Julian Assange on May 21. There is no “nothing to gain” upon his incarceration, he declared, believing that “enough is enough”. The prosecution of Julian Assange “cannot continue indefinitely”had already hit the Australian Prime Minister at the start of 2024.

According to Emma Shortis, a researcher at the think tank The Australia Institute, interviewed by AFP, even Washington “recognized that this had to stop”. “There was simply no way this wouldn’t become a problem for the US-Australia alliance”she analyzes.

The United States has not yet commented on the agreement between the justice system and Julian Assange. The Australian government commented on this outcome, believing that the Assange affair had “dragged on for too long”.

2What did American justice accuse Julian Assange of?

The American authorities accuse the Australian of having made public in 2010 more than 700,000 confidential documents on American military and diplomatic activities, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. Julian Assange, then targeted by 18 counts, theoretically risked up to 175 years in prison under the American espionage law. Among the leaked documents is a video showing civilians, including two Reuters journalists, killed by fire from an American combat helicopter in Iraq in July 2007.

During the 2016 US presidential campaign, Julian Assange also revealed several thousand hacked emails from the Democratic Party and candidate Hillary Clinton’s team. These revelations sparked strong praise from his opponent Donald Trump. According to the CIA, these documents were obtained from Russian agents, which WikiLeaks denies.

In 2011, five newspapers (including New York Times, The Guardian And The world) partners of WikiLeaks had condemned the platform’s method, for having made public unredacted telegrams from the US State Department, believing that they were likely to “put certain sources at risk”.

3What are the next steps in this legal procedure?

After leaving the United Kingdom late Monday afternoon aboard a private plane at Stansted Airport in London, Julian Assange must appear Wednesday in federal court in the Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory in the Pacific. He should be sentenced to 62 months in prison, already served in pre-trial detention in the United Kingdom, which would allow him to quickly return to Australia, free. “There is an agreement in principle between Julian and the Department of Justice”his wife, Stella Assange, told the BBC.

“He pleaded guilty, but what matters is that he is free”, reacted on franceinfo Antoine Vey, one of Julian Assange’s lawyers. During the night, the WikiLeaks X account released a video in which we see the man boarding a plane. “It’s a huge relief for all the people who (…) followed the fate of Julian Assange”estimated the lawyer.

For Antoine Vey, this liberation “is also an opportunity to twist the neck of this mythology” according to which WikiLeaks put American citizens in danger. “No person was put in danger by his information. Moreover, the United States (…) concluded an agreement which clearly shows that this has never been the case,” he says.