WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange has been freed from Belmarsh maximum security prison in the UK as part of a plea deal with the US Justice Department. The activist spent five years behind bars in London while fighting extradition to the US, where he is accused of illegally obtaining and disclosing national security materials which shed light on alleged American war crimes.
According to the US Department of Justice, Assange has agreed to plead guilty at a court in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific. He is expected to be sentenced to around five years, equating to the time he has already spent in the British prison, while the extradition request is likely to be dropped. After the court proceedings, Assange is expected to travel to Australia, his country of citizenship.
In 2012, the WikiLeaks co-founder hosted ‘The World Tomorrow’ on RT. Over 12 episodes, the program covered a number of hotly debated topics, featuring guests such as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, former Guantanamo Bay inmate Moazzam Begg, and former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan.
26 June 2024
Assange has arrived at the airport in Canberra after a six-hour journey from Saipan. He was met by his wife Stella, father John Shipton, as well as a crowd of supporters and journalists.
A group of supporters is celebrating Assange’s release outside the US consulate in Sydney.
Assange has boarded a flight from Saipan to Canberra, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has said. The flight will take six hours.
The US Department of Justice has released a lengthy press statement, detailing the charges against Assange and listing numerous classified documents published by WikiLeaks throughout the years.
According to the plea deal, “Assange is prohibited from returning to the United States without permission,” the DOJ said.
Assange has been sentenced to the time he already served in Belmarsh Prison, with no period of supervised release. Explaining the sentence, Judge Manglona said that she had taken into account Assange’s “14-year ordeal” beginning with his arrest in 2010, and the fact that “no personal victim” was harmed by his publication of classified documents.
”I understand your birthday is next week,” Manglona said to Assange after reading out the sentence. “I hope you will start your new life in a positive manner.”
Assange told the judge that he had believed that the First Amendment to the US Constitution protected him during the publication of classified material.
”I accept it’s a violation of the espionage statute,” he continued. “I believe the First Amendment and the Espionage Act are in contradiction with each other, but I accept that it would be difficult to win such a case given all the circumstances.”
Assange described himself as “a journalist” who “encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified.”
As part of his plea agreement, Assange is required to instruct WikiLeaks to destroy classified information stored on its servers or devices, the court has heard. US prosecutors told Judge Manglona that they are satisfied that Assange has done so. It is unclear whether WikiLeaks has complied or will comply with this instruction.
25 June 2024
Assange has pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information. Asked whether he was ready to enter a plea, Assange replied “yes.” Asked whether he was pleading guilty or not guilty, he responded “guilty.”
According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Judge Romana Manglona has entered the courtroom and Assange’s hearing has begun.
Sitting beside the WikiLeaks founder are Australian Ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd, Australian Ambassador to the UK Stephen Smith, and Assange’s lawyer Jennifer Robinson.
Stella Assange has shared a video of her husband arriving at the courthouse in Saipan. “I watch this and think how overloaded his senses must be, walking through the press scrum after years of sensory deprivation and the four walls of his high security Belmarsh prison cell,” she wrote on X.
Assange has arrived at the United States District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands in Saipan. The former WikiLeaks head showed up at the courthouse ahead of schedule and is expected to plead guilty to a single espionage charge, as per the deal struck with the US government.
Assange did not respond to questions from the press as he passed through a metal detector and entered the building.
Former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters has congratulated Assange on his release, calling on the WikiLeaks founder to return to journalism once he is in good health.
“You know what I’d like to see? You old mucker, I’d like to see you back at work at WikiLeaks. Somebody has to pick up the cudgels and keep up the amazing, brilliant work that you did,” he said in a video posted by Double Down News.
“Good on you Julian! Thank you for the huge sacrifice you made for the rest of us,” Waters concluded.
Waters has campaigned for Assange’s release for more than a decade, visiting the Australian publisher in London’s Belmarsh Prison last October. “It was emotionally very crippling,” Waters said of the visit. “Imagine being locked up in solitary confinement for five years, particularly if you’ve never committed a crime. It’s beyond all imagination.”
Assange will leave Saipan for Australia at 12pm local time on Wednesday (2am GMT), according to a flight plan filed with authorities in the US territory and posted on the tracking site FlightAware. This timeline suggests that Assange’s legal team expects his court hearing – scheduled for 9am local time – to be wrapped up quickly.
Julian Assange’s charter jet has entered US airspace and will touch down in Saipan in a matter of minutes, Wikileaks has announced on social media. VistaJet flight VJT199, which left London on Monday and made a refueling stop in Bangkok on Tuesday, is the world’s most-tracked airplane, according to the Flightradar24 app.
The Free Assange Campaign has raised more than $115,000 toward the $520,000 cost of Assange’s charter flight to Saipan, according to Crowdfunder. The WikiLeaks founder was not permitted to fly commercial to the US territory, and will have to reimburse the Australian government for the cost of the flight.
Assange took off for Saipan after a refueling stop in Bangkok on Tuesday night, and will touch down in Saipan just after 6am local time (8pm GMT), according to data from Flightradar24.
The chief executive of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Jodie Ginsberg, hailed the news of Assange’s release, saying the WikiLeaks co-founder faced a prosecution that had “grave implications for journalists and press freedom worldwide.”
“While we welcome the end of his detention, the US’ pursuit of Assange has set a harmful legal precedent by opening the way for journalists to be tried under the Espionage Act if they receive classified material from whistleblowers,” Ginsberg reportedly claimed, stressing “this should never have been the case.”
“Millions of people who have been advocating for Julian, it is almost time for them to have a drink and a celebration,” Assange’s brother Gabriel Shipton told Reuters.
Shipton earlier revealed to Australia’s ABC that he knew for weeks his brother was about to be released from prison in the UK.
Speaking about the footage of Assange boarding the plane at Stansted Airport, Shipton said it was “great” to see his brother in broad daylight again. He added that the last time they saw each other was in the visitors room at Belmarsh Prison in the UK.
A plane with Assange on board departed Bangkok, Thailand after refueling on Tuesday, the Associated Press reports. The chartered flight from London left Don Mueang International Airport, according to the Flightradar24 plane tracking app. The WikiLeaks co-founder is reportedly on the way to Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, a US commonwealth in the Western Pacific, to enter a plea deal with the US government.
The International Federation of Journalists has welcomed Assange’s release as a “significant victory for media freedom” and “a massive boost for free speech.” It added that the development “avoids the criminalization of the normal journalistic practices of encouraging sources to confidentially share evidence of wrongdoing and criminality.”
Assange’s release is a “welcome surprise” but is “long overdue,” American political commentator Jackson Hinkle has told RT. He said that the WikiLeaks co-founder had been “tortured in prison not for committing crimes of his own but for exposing crimes” of powerful Western leaders.
Hinkle suggested that the US had avoided the inevitable outrage which would have followed if Assange had been extradited and jailed in America. The journalist also did not rule out that the move to free Assange may have been a bid to boost US President Joe Biden’s ratings.
“Objectively, this is one of the best things any president has done in my entire life. You have to give credit where credit is due,” Hinkle said. He added, however, that the fact that Assange will have to plead guilty is “horrific” and sets a “terrible precedent.”
Several other world leaders have reacted to Assange’s release, including Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who said: “The Statue of Liberty did not remain an empty symbol; she is alive and happy like millions in the world.”
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro also congratulated Assange, describing his release as “the triumph of freedom and humanity’s fight for respect for Human Rights.”
“Assange is an example of courage and bravery in the battle for the truth. Justice will always prevail!” he added.
Former US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who held the post between 2010 and 2017, when Assange released many of his bombshell reports, said the WikiLeaks co-founder had “paid his dues,” given that he spent several years in the Ecuadorian embassy and then in prison.
He told CNN that he was more or less happy with the imminent deal. "Critical to this was his plea on one count of espionage. I think the law enforcement community and the intelligence community wouldn’t have bought into this without that.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has reacted cautiously to the news of Assange’s release, saying it is necessary to know the exact conditions of the Wikileaks co-founder's imminent plea deal with the US in order to make any conclusions.
The plea agreement between Assange and the US was signed last Wednesday, according to the order released by the UK High Court, which granted conditional bail to the activist based on this deal. The court also noted that it is “anticipated that a plea will be entered and accepted on Wednesday 26 June 2024, after which the United States have undertaken to withdraw the extradition request.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told parliament that Assange is being accompanied by the high commissioner to the UK, Stephen Smith, Australia’s most senior diplomat in Britain.
“The Australian government has continued to provide consular assistance to Mr. Assange,” he said, adding that Canberra’s envoy to the US, Kevin Rudd, is “also providing important assistance.”
Albanese added that regardless of what the general public thinks about Assange and his activities, “the case has dragged on for too long.” “There is nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration and we want him brought home to Australia.”
Stella Assange has said her husband will seek a pardon, which can only be granted by the US president, once he has pleaded guilty as part of his deal with the US Justice Department. The prosecution of the activist under the Espionage Act is a “very serious concern” for journalists, she added.
The administration of US President Joe Biden had to agree to release Assange in exchange for a guilty plea partly because it came under pressure from the Australian government, former Biden aide Tara Reade has claimed.
In an interview with RT, she said the White House did not want to extradite the Australian-born activist and have a “spectacle” in the run-up to November’s presidential election, as Assange enjoys widespread popular support. Reade said, however, that the US was still reluctant to “take responsibility” for its actions, as it would not drop the charges against Assange or former NSA operative Edward Snowden, who leaked classified data.
Former UN Special Commission weapons inspector and ex-US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter told RT that while he is happy to see Assange’s release, the outcome of the case against the activist is an “absolute defeat for free speech in America,” explaining that he had to admit to a crime he had not committed.
“The US government won. They broke him,” Ritter stated, adding that no American is immune to the same kind of persecution.
Stella Assange told the BBC that one of her priorities now is to get the activist “healthy again,” as “he’s been in a terrible state for five years” while being held in Belmarsh maximum security prison. She added that Assange’s children, who are five and seven years old, for now don’t know about the imminent plea deal, because it is yet to be set in stone.
Stella Assange has confirmed that her husband’s plane – which she said cost $500,000 to book – has landed in Bangkok and “will soon take off again and fly into US airspace where he will appear before a US judge.” The aircraft is scheduled to land in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, at 6am local time (8pm GMT), according to the Flightradar website.
Speaking to the BBC, Stella Assange has said her husband and the US Justice Department have reached “an agreement in principle,” which has to be formally signed by the judge in the Northern Mariana Islands.
Former US Vice President Mike Pence, who served in the Trump administration, has blasted the plea agreement, claiming that Assange “endangered the lives of our troops in a time of war and should have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Pence hit out at the Biden administration, accusing it of “a miscarriage of justice” and of dishonoring US service members and their families.
US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr has welcomed the freeing of Assange. However, he deplored that the activist had to agree to a guilty plea.
This “means the US security state succeeded in criminalizing journalism and extending their jurisdiction globally to non-citizens,” the presidential hopeful wrote on X (formerly Twitter). He added that, if Assange had persisted, “he would have died in prison” due to his heart problems.
Assange was forced to agree to a guilty plea as for years he wrestled with “the system designed to beat you down,” human rights activist Marty Gottesfeld has told RT. Gottesfeld spent years in a US prison after being accused of launching a cyberattack at a Boston hospital, to expose what he insists was the medical kidnapping and “torture” of a girl.
Gottesfeld suggested that the US is unlikely to bar Assange from talking about the harsh prison conditions he had endured, noting that this would be “unprecedented.” At the same time, he did not rule out a gag order prohibiting the activist from further discussing the contents of classified American files.
Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, who granted Assange asylum at the country’s embassy in London in 2012, has told RT that the activist has been “persecuted for telling the truth, not for lying.” “This has been really crazy. Twelve years of a journalist’s life have been stolen from him for telling the truth. The real war criminals went unpunished,” Correa said.
Stella Assange, the Australian-born activist’s wife, posted a photo on X (formerly known as Twitter) of what she said was “Julian calling into Sydney from Stansted airport last night” with the Sydney Opera House in the background.
Murray said that while Assange will have to live within certain limitations, his family apparently believes that the deal is certain. “Of course, nobody really takes seriously this guilty [plea]. It’s obvious… this is coerced. It is a cheap move by the Biden administration, to claim a little hollow victory for themselves.”
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Despite his release and expected deal with the US Justice Department, Assange is a “marked man” and “will always be in danger” after exposing US secrets, Craig Murray, a human rights activist and former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, told RT. This threat, he added, comes “particularly from the malicious forces of the CIA and the United States.”
The VJT199 charter flight believed to be carrying Assange has landed in Bangkok, Thailand, according to the Flightradar24 website. It is unclear whether the aircraft is refueling after flying from the UK, or how the activist will continue his journey to the Northern Mariana Islands, some 5,000km to the east.