WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison on Wednesday as part of a deal he reached with the U.S. Department of Justice to end his incarceration.
On Wednesday morning, Australian publisher Assange pleaded guilty in the federal court on Saipan, capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a commonwealth of the United States. The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Ramona Manglona.
The Commonwealth’s request satisfied Assange’s desire to avoid the mainland United States.
Assange flew to court on a chartered flight from Britain, where he is imprisoned, accompanied by members of his legal team and Australian officials.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange reaches plea deal to avoid US jail time
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (left) is escorted to a U.S. court in Saipan, Mariana Islands, to sign a plea agreement on Wednesday. (Associated Press)
Assange had spent years trying to avoid extradition to the United States from Britain to avoid facing charges for publishing classified U.S. military documents leaked to him by sources.
Before reaching the plea deal, Assange, 52, faced 17 counts under the Espionage Act for allegedly receiving, possessing and disseminating confidential information to the public, and one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. By striking a plea deal, he can now avoid spending up to 175 years in a U.S. maximum-security prison.
The charges were brought by the Trump administration’s Justice Department over WikiLeaks’ 2010 release of leaked cables from U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, and the Biden administration has continued to prosecute until a plea deal was reached. The cables detailed war crimes committed by the U.S. government in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, as well as instances of torture and rendition by the CIA.
WikiLeaks’ “Collateral Murder” video, also released 14 years ago, showed U.S. troops shooting civilians in Iraq, including two Reuters journalists.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters in the capital Canberra on Wednesday that Australia has been “using all appropriate channels to support a positive outcome in the Assange case.”
“As leader of the Labor Party and as Prime Minister, I have made it very clear that whatever you think of Mr Assange’s activities, his case has dragged on for too long,” Albanese said. “Continuing to jail him will not serve the purpose.” Any benefit. We want him to be brought back to Australia.”
As a condition of his plea, Assange must destroy classified information provided to WikiLeaks.
Australian MPs write letter urging Biden to drop case against Julian Assange on World Press Freedom Day
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is the first journalist to be charged under the Espionage Act. (Associated Press)
The plea deal requires Assange to plead guilty to a felony but allows him to avoid jail time in the United States and return to Australia to reunite with his family. Assange’s release was welcomed by his family and supporters, but concerns about press freedom remain as he was forced to admit to journalistic activities.
“It’s great news that the Justice Department is ending this embarrassing saga,” Seth Stern, advocacy director at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, told Fox News Digital. “But it’s shocking that the Biden administration feels the need to The plea agreement will not have the precedential effect of a court ruling, but it will still hang in the balance for years to come.
One of Assange’s lawyers, Jennifer Robinson, told reporters that her client’s case “sets a dangerous precedent that should attract the attention of journalists around the world.”
“For Julian Assange, his family, his friends, his supporters and us – for everyone who believes in free speech around the world – it is a great relief that he can now return to Australia and be reunited with his family. He breathed a sigh of relief.
UK court rules Julian Assange may launch full appeal against US extradition on First Amendment grounds
Assange was imprisoned in Belmarsh High Security Prison in London Since being expelled from the Ecuadorian Embassy on April 11, 2019 for violating bail conditions. He has sought asylum at the embassy since 2012 to avoid being sent to Sweden over accusations of raping two women because Sweden would not provide guarantees to protect him from extradition to the United States. It is revoked.
With the case over, the Justice Department avoided an appeals hearing in which Assange would challenge his extradition from the United States on First Amendment grounds. Assange was granted the right to appeal last month after his lawyers successfully argued that U.S. guarantees that he enjoyed the same free speech protections as U.S. citizens in U.S. courts were “manifestly inadequate.”
Assange told the court on Wednesday that he believed the Espionage Act was inconsistent with the First Amendment but accepted the consequences of obtaining classified information from sources.
He is the first journalist to be charged under the Espionage Act.
“This is an indictment that should never have been brought,” Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, told Fox News Digital. “Julian Assange has pleaded guilty to activities at the heart of national security investigative journalism that involved journalists It happens every day. Journalists’ job is to uncover government secrets and reveal them in the public interest.”
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange left London’s Belmarsh Prison on Monday after being granted bail at a secret hearing last week. (Associated Press)
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Assange’s wife Stella told the BBC it would take about 72 hours to determine whether the deal could be completed, but she was “delighted” with the news of her husband’s release. Details of the agreement will be released after a judge signs off, she said.
The WikiLeaks founder left a London jail on Monday after being granted bail at a secret hearing last week. He boarded a plane and landed in Bangkok a few hours later to refuel before flying to Saipan.
In 2013, the Obama administration decided not to prosecute Assange over WikiLeaks’ release of classified cables in 2010 because it would also have to prosecute journalists at major news outlets who published the same material.
President Obama also Manning gets 35 years reduced sentence In January 2017, Manning was sentenced to seven years in prison for violating the Espionage Act and other crimes. Manning, who had been incarcerated since 2010, was released later that year.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
