Julian Assange was released after leaving the maximum security prison where he had been detained for five years in the United Kingdom, as reported by Wikileaks. The 52-year-old Australian left Belmarsh prison near London on Monday morning and later took a flight at Stanstead airport to return to Australia. Assange, who faced trial in the United States for revealing confidential documents, is scheduled to appear in a federal court in the Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific, on Wednesday.
In the upcoming court appearance, Assange is expected to plead guilty to “conspiracy to obtain and disclose information relating to national defense,” according to court documents. He could face a sentence of 62 months in prison, but having already spent a similar time in preventive detention in London, it is anticipated that he will be able to return to Australia a free man. Wikileaks announced that Julian Assange is now free and has left the United Kingdom after reaching an agreement with US justice.
This agreement brings an end to a saga that has lasted almost 14 years, just two weeks before a crucial hearing in British courts over the extradition of Assange to the United States. Assange has been fighting extradition since 2019 when he was arrested in London. He is accused by American authorities of publishing hundreds of thousands of confidential documents related to military and diplomatic activities, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Among the documents published by Wikileaks was a video showing civilians, including two Reuters journalists, being killed by a US helicopter gunship in Iraq in 2007. Despite being seen as a beacon for press freedom by some, others argue that Assange’s actions violated laws protecting sensitive information and endangered the national security of the United States.
The case for Assange’s extradition was initially approved by the British government in June 2022, but two British judges later granted him the right to appeal the decision. Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, was arrested by British police in 2019 after spending seven years living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Requests have been made for US President Joe Biden to drop the charges against Assange, including a formal request submitted by Australia in February that Biden said he was considering.