As expected, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange gained his freedom after pleading guilty on Wednesday to a single felony charge for publishing US military documents in federal court, allowing him to return to Australia and embrace his long-awaiting wife Stella.
His plea was accepted by US District Judge Ramona Manglona in a federal courthouse on the island of Saipan, a territory of the US in the remote Northern Mariana Islands, and was “sentenced” to time he already served in the UK. He was then allowed to fly home to his home country of Australia.
Assange’s wife Stella celebrated his arrival, simply posting on X: “Home.”
Home. pic.twitter.com/OZAcXloxiP
— Stella Assange (@Stella_Assange) June 26, 2024
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After getting off the plane in the capital city of Canberra in the early hours of Wednesday morning, Assange raised a fist as he walked over to his wife and his father, John Shipton.
⚡️Julian Assange reunites with his wife and father in Canberra pic.twitter.com/Y41hQ0377J
— RT (@RT_com) June 26, 2024
Conmovedor abrazo de Assange con su esposa y su padre entre un estruendoso aplauso pic.twitter.com/rXzxlj9Whs
— El Necio (@ElNecio_Cuba) June 26, 2024
Prosecutors at the Department of Justice recommended a sentence of 62 months, but Assange will not be in US custody because he received a “credit” for the five years he spent in UK prison, according to the plea agreement. The DOJ told a federal judge in a letter sent Monday that Assange avoided setting foot on the US mainland to enter his guilty plea, instead electing to go to the island territory close to his home country.
As Valuetainment previously reported, Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, was hiding out at the Ecuadorian embassy from 2012 to 2019 in Britain to escape prosecution. He was wanted by US authorities on 18 counts, including a spying charge, due to WikiLeaks’ release of American military documents as well as cables from American diplomats. Assange released said documents to reveal what he perceived as egregious acts carried out in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As of January 2023, Assange was being held in Belmarsh maximum security prison in southeast London. He had been incarcerated there since 2019 when the Ecuadorian Embassy ejected him after seven years of granting him asylum.
Julian Assange founded WikiLeaks, which provides primary source news reporting to the public, often including internal or classified documents. Assange was arrested in London in 2010 and faces legal challenges from many countries threatened by WikiLeaks exposés. In particular, multiple troves of documents pertaining to America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that WikiLeaks released in 2010 brought him the ire of the US government. But what actually led to Assange’s arrest were rape accusations brought forward by Swedish prosecutors.
Shane Devine is a writer covering politics and business for VT and a regular guest on The Unusual Suspects. Follow Shane’s work here.
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