Julian Assange was released from prison on Monday, June 25, and has left Britain, WikiLeaks said, as he reached a landmark plea deal with US authorities that brought an end to his years-long legal drama. “Julian Assange is free,” WikiLeaks wrote on X of its founder, who had been detained in Britain for five years as he fought extradition to the United States which sought to prosecute him for revealing military secrets.
He has agreed to plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defense information, according to a document filed in court in the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific.
Assange is scheduled to appear in the US territory on Wednesday morning local time. He is expected to be sentenced to 62 months in prison, with credit for the five years and two months he has served in prison in Britain. This means he could return to his native Australia.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said there was nothing to be gained by keeping the Australian incarcerated. He told Parliament that Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom Stephen Smith had flown with Assange from London. “The government is certainly aware that Australian citizen Mr. Julian Assange has legal proceedings scheduled in the United States. While this is a welcome development, we recognize that these proceedings are crucial and they’re delicate,” Albanese told Parliament. “Regardless of the views that people have about Mr. Assange’s activities, the case has dragged on for too long. There’s nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration and we want him brought home to Australia,” the Australian prime minister added.
Assange, now aged 52, was wanted by Washington for publishing hundreds of thousands of secret US documents from 2010 as head of the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.
Assange’s family expressed deep gratitude for his freedom, including his mother Christine Assange who said in a statement carried by Australian media that she was “grateful that my son’s ordeal is finally coming to an end.” His wife Stella meanwhile thanked campaigners, writing on social media platform X that “words cannot express our immense gratitude.”
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