WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange released after deal with US

The WikiLeaks portal has announced on its X account that Julian Assange has left the British high-security prison where he was being held this Monday morning and has already left the United Kingdom with the aim of returning to Australia.

“Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum-security prison on the morning of June 24, after spending 1,901 days there,” WikiLeaks reported in X. One of Assange’s lawyers, Aitor Martinez, tweeted the agreement. “Assange has reached an agreement with the Department of Justice and is finally free,” Martinez said.

https://twitter.com/X/status/1805386424365334964?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”/>

WikiLeaks’ announcement comes after it was revealed in court documents that Assange has struck a deal with the US Justice Department that will allow him to return to Australia and end a lengthy judicial saga over the leak of classified documents. Assange will appear this Wednesday to finalise that deal with the Justice Department.

A US judge had charged Assange with 18 offences for violating the Espionage Act in 2010 over one of the largest leaks of classified information in United States history, which revealed secrets from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as data about detainees at the Guantanamo base, among other matters.

Under the deal with the Justice Department, Assange will plead guilty to one count of conspiring to illegally receive and transmit classified information at a court hearing on Wednesday.

The appearance will take place at a court in the Mariana Islands because of Assange’s opposition to traveling to the continental United States and the court’s proximity to Australia, according to a Justice Department letter filed with the court.

Under the deal, which still must be approved by a judge, Assange will be sentenced to only 62 months in prison, equivalent to the time he has already served at the high-security Belmarsh prison.

Organisations defending freedom of the press have been demanding Assange’s release for years and his wife Stella is leading a campaign in his defence with the participation of celebrities and political figures.

Australian Prime Minister: “We want them back to Australia”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has already spoken about Assange’s release and expressed his desire for him to return to Australia. “Nothing will be achieved by his imprisonment and we want him back in Australia,” Albanese said in a control session in the Canberra parliament on Tuesday, referring to the 52-year-old activist.

Albanese has praised his government’s efforts to mediate for Assange and “protect Australia’s interests” through diplomacy in both the United Kingdom and the United States, as he said in parliament. However, the president has said that “while we welcome these rapid developments, we recognize that these processes are important and delicate,” promising more statements once the long legal battle over one of the largest leaks of classified information in US history is over.

The Albanese government, which took power in May 2022, had asked Washington on several occasions to refrain from Assange’s extradition, to which US President Joe Biden responded last April that he was “considering” it.