Plea deal resolves a longstanding legal battle with the U.S. government stemming from one of the largest leaks of classified information in U.S. history.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange walked free after pleading guilty on June 25 to a single felony charge related to the publication of classified U.S. military information, ending a yearslong legal battle with the U.S. government.
The move allows the 52-year-old to return home to his native Australia for the first time since 2012.
Mr. Assange pleaded guilty to a single criminal count of conspiracy to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information as part of a deal with the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ).
The agreement will allow him to avoid extradition to the United States and keep him from spending any time in an American prison in lieu of the 62 months that he’s already served in a UK prison.
He entered the plea at a court in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory in the western Pacific north of Guam, at around 9:45 a.m. local time.
That location was chosen due to Mr. Assange’s opposition to traveling to the U.S. mainland to enter a guilty plea and because of its proximity to his home country of Australia, according to a letter sent to U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona by prosecutors on June 25.
Speaking outside the court, Mr. Assange’s lawyer, Barry J. Pollack, called the prosecution “unprecedented” and said the WikiLeaks founder should never have been charged with an espionage offense for publishing the classified materials.
“He has suffered tremendously in his fight for free speech, for freedom of the press, and to ensure that the American public and the world community gets truthful and important newsworthy information,” his attorney said.
“It is appropriate, though … for the judge, as she did today, to determine that no additional incarceration of Mr Assange would be fair,” he added.
The Justice Department said it expected Mr. Assange to return to Australia after the court hearing was complete.
“Julian walks out of Saipan federal court a free man,” Stella Assange, Mr. Assange’s wife, wrote on the social media platform X alongside a photo of him leaving the court.
“I can’t stop crying,” she added.
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