WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange spent $500,000 to escape to a remote island and avoid setting foot on the American mainland. This comes after he accepted a plea deal with the US government and was released from prison.
Assange was freed on Monday morning from the UK prison system and paid $500,000 to fly from the London Stansted Airport to the US territory of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, according to reports. On Wednesday, the 52-year-old journalist will have a federal court hearing on the island.
The Sun claims that Assange chose the island because it was closer to his home country of Australia.
Listen to these words spoken by Julian Assange:
“The goal is not to completely subjugate Afghanistan. The goal of Afghanistan is to wash money out of the tax bases of the United States…. the goal is to have an endless war, not a successful war.”
Now look at Ukraine:
In Feb.… pic.twitter.com/X4zevDJo9t
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) June 25, 2024
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Professor of Sydney University law school Emily Crawford explained to Reuters, “He has to [face] up to charges that have been brought under US law. … It had to be US territory but it had to be the US territory closest to Australia that wasn’t a US state like Hawaii.”
Assange is expected to plead guilty to conspiracy to obtain and release national defense records, according to the US Justice Department on Monday. His wife Stella says he will seek a pardon from the US after his guilty plea. His five years in UK jail is expected to count as time served, permitting him to fly to Australia.
Stella Assange says it has been a “rough few years” and will not believe it until she sees him in person. “I feel elated. I also feel worried, you know, because I’m so used to this. Anything could happen. I’m worried that until it’s fully signed off, I worry, but it looks like we’ve got there. I’ll really believe it when I have him in front of me and I can take him and hug him and then it will be real, you know?” she said, adding that their children are with her in Australia.
Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, was hiding out at the Ecuadorian embassy from 2012 to 2019 in Britain to escape prosecution. He is 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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