He Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has decided to plead guilty as part of a deal with the US Department of Justice that will allow him to be released and return to his native Australia after spending five years in a British prison. Assange, 52, pleads guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act for his role in obtaining and publishing secret military and diplomatic documents in 2010, according to court documents. This agreement, which is due to be ratified this Wednesday, puts an end to a long legal soap opera. 'Julian Assange is free' Wikileaks tweeted.
A document presented in the court of remote Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, in the Pacific Ocean, already dated Tuesday, June 25, alleging that Assange “knowingly and illegally conspired” to “receive and obtain documents relating to national defense' and 'to communicate “That information to people who had no right to receive it.” A letter from the Ministry of Justice recorded before the same court states: “We expect that the defendant will plead guilty (…) to conspiracy to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified information relating to the national defense of the United States (…) and will be convicted by the Court for this crime.”
The same letter indicates that Assange will appear this Wednesday at 9:00 a.m. local time (1:00 a.m. in mainland Spain), before Judge Ramona Villagómez Manglona, who hastily took up the matter. According to the Justice Department, the suspect refused to appear in court in the continental United States. These islands are closer to Australia, where US authorities expect Assange to go after his release. always according to court documents.
The crime to which Assange pleads guilty carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, but the suspect is expected to appear before that court and be sentenced to up to five years, which would be added to the time he spends in British prison spent, which means he would be released.
Before this agreement, the United States government charged Assange with seventeen counts of Espionage Act crimes and one count of computer interference. The Australian publisher faced a maximum prison sentence of 170 years, mainly for leaking more than 250,000 classified documents from the US State Department in November 2010. EL PAÍS was one of the media that participated in this joint effort publication of these documents.
Five years in prison
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Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012 and was granted political asylum after courts in England ruled he should be extradited to Sweden as part of a rape investigation in the Scandinavian country. During his stay at the embassy, he had two children with Stella Assange, his current wife. He was arrested by British police in April 2019 after the Government of Ecuador will revoke his asylum status. Sweden eventually withdrew the sex crimes investigation, but he spent five years in the high-security Belmarsh prison, southeast of London, fighting extradition to the United States. This Monday he left prison and started the journey to the Mariana Islands.
“Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of June 24, after spending 1,901 days there. He was granted bail at the High Court in London and released from Stansted Airport in the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and left Britain. Wikileaks tweeted. “After more than five years in a 2×3 meter cell, isolated 23 hours a day, he will soon be reunited with his wife Stella Assange and his children, who only knew their father behind bars,” the organization added.
The extradition process was on hold pending an appeal from Assange. Judges at the High Court in London found Washington's assurances that the Wikileaks co-founder would receive a fair trial if sent to the United States insufficient. Last month, Assange was given the right to appeal the extradition order after his lawyers argued that the US government had provided “manifestly inadequate” guarantees that the suspect would enjoy the same freedom of expression protections as a US citizen if he Britain would be extradited. .
Assange claimed that the publication of the confidential documents was a matter of public interest and that he was protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects freedom of expression. “WikiLeaks published groundbreaking stories on government corruption and human rights abuses, holding the powerful accountable for their actions. As director, Julian paid heavily for these principles and for people's right to know,” he said on Monday. Wikileaks. However, Washington insisted the leak compromised resources, citizens and national security with documents that harmed the United States and its allies and helped their adversaries.
Manning convicted
The Justice Department's 2019 indictment accused Assange of encouraging and helping US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal diplomatic cables and military files that Wikileaks published in 2010. Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison after being found guilty of violating the Espionage Act and other crimes for leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks. President Barack Obama commuted his sentence in 2017, which resulted in his release after about seven years behind bars.
While the Obama administration failed to bring charges against Assange, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, appointed by Donald Trump, made the Australian's extradition a priority. That's despite Wikileaks publishing compromising Democratic emails in 2016 that prosecutors say were stolen by Russian intelligence agents. He was never charged in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, but the investigation uncovered the role the hacking operation played in meddling in that year's election on behalf of the then-Republican candidate. Donald Trump.
The accusation against Assange was criticized by his supporters and by defenders of press freedom. Federal prosecutors argued that his conduct went far beyond that of an information-gathering journalist and amounted to an attempt to indiscriminately request, steal and publish classified documents.
The President of the United States, Joe Biden, acknowledged last April that the United States was considering this accept a request from Australia to end the legal process against Julian Assange. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese backed a motion in his country's lower house in February calling for Assange's return.
Wikileaks attributes the final outcome to a global campaign involving grassroots organizers, press freedom advocates, lawmakers and leaders from across the political spectrum, up to the United Nations. “This created space for a long period of negotiations with the US Department of Justice, which led to an agreement that has not yet been formally concluded,” he said. “Julian's freedom is our freedom,” he concludes.