Julian Assange was released from prison after reaching a deal with the US government that would allow him to avoid being extradited to that country
image Source, X/Reuters
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Julian Assange, founder of the leaked page WikiLeaks, left the British prison where he was being held this Monday and left the United Kingdom after reaching an agreement with the US government that will allow him to avoid being extradited to the latter country.
As court documents have revealed, in the next few hours Assange will plead guilty to the crime of espionage before a United States court. Northern Mariana Islandsa US territory in the Pacific Ocean, and would accept a sentence of 62 months in prison.
The BBC’s American partner CBS reported this Assange will not be kept in US custody since he would be recognised for the time he was imprisoned in the United Kingdom. He plans to return to AustraliaHis country of origin, according to a letter from the U.S. Justice Department.
The 52-year-old WikiLeaks founder will plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information.
Assange was imprisoned in the United Kingdom for 5 years, from where he was fighting to avoid his extradition to the United States, where justice was needed due to the massive leak by WikiLeaks of confidential government documents in 2010.
WikiLeaks provided this information through a statement on Assange’s release on Monday.
,Julian Assange is free. After spending 1,901 days there, he left the maximum-security prison of Belmarsh on the morning of June 24. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and released in the afternoon at Stansted Airport, where he boarded a plane and departed the United Kingdom,” said the statement published in X.
A video shared by WikiLeaks shows Assange, dressed in jeans and a blue shirt, being driven to Stansted before boarding a plane.
The BBC has not been able to independently verify the video.
His wife, Stella Assange, thanked his followers in the post “who have worked for years to make this a reality.”
image Source, X/Reuters
Assange and his lawyers have long claimed the case against him in the US was politically motivated.
In April, US President Joe Biden said he was considering Australia’s request To withdraw the case against Assange.
Assange faced 18 charges for his alleged role – most of them under the Espionage Act The massive leak of thousands of US government documents by WikiLeaks in 2010. Which revealed secret information about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These confidential military and diplomatic documents were provided to WikiLeaks by former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
In 2017, then-US President Barack Obama commuted Manning’s 35-year prison sentence.
A British court gave this verdict last month Assange had the right to appeal against his extradition to the United States Holding that the government of that country had not provided adequate guarantees that he would enjoy the same freedom of expression protections as an American citizen.
Assange was imprisoned for five years in the United Kingdom after spending seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, from where he was forcibly removed and detained in April 2019 after Ecuadorian authorities withdrew his asylum.
When he entered the embassy, Assange was facing rape and sexual assault charges in Sweden, which he has always denied, claiming the Swedish government wanted to extradite him to the United States.
image Source, Getty Images
A controversial figure
To his fans, Assange is a courageous champion of the truth. To his critics, he’s just seeking publicity Even at the cost of putting others’ lives at risk by revealing sensitive information.
Those who know him describe him as a brilliant, driven and highly intelligent man with an extraordinary ability to understand computer code.
In 2006 he created WikiLeaks, A website that publishes confidential documents and picturesLeaks are usually done by sources not publicly identified to expose scandals and cases of corruption.
In April that year, the site made headlines around the world by exposing images of US troops firing from a helicopter, killing 18 civilians in Iraq.
From that moment on he adopted a nomadic lifestyle as he became famous for his revelations.
WikiLeaks became even more popular in 2010 after a massive leak of classified US military material on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The same year, Sweden charged him with two counts of sexual assault.
Swedish authorities wanted to question him over allegations that he had raped one woman and sexually assaulted another during a visit to Stockholm to give a lecture in August 2010.
He He assured that both the meetings were held unanimously,
Assange spent several months following the indictment under house arrest in a rural English home, from where he fought an extradition order to Sweden.
However, in late May 2012, the UK Supreme Court ordered the extradition to take place.
A few days later, Assange appeared Embassy of Ecuador in London and requested asylum, arguing that there had been “persecution” against him.
The country’s president at the time, Rafael Correa, granted him asylum.
In May 2017, a Swedish judge decided to close the case, unable to continue the investigation due to the imprisonment conditions of the accused.
However, even though extradition to Sweden was no longer a threat, the Australian refused to leave the embassy, as he believed he risked being sent to the US for questioning about WikiLeaks activities.
In April 2019, Ecuador’s then-President Lenin Moreno revoked his asylum and Assange was sent to a London prison, where he remains incarcerated ever since.
image Source, Getty Images
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