WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Wednesday walked free after he pleaded guilty to an espionage charge by the United States, ending a 12-year legal battle against his extradition to the country.
WikiLeaks is a nonprofit media organisation that publishes leaked documents.
Assange was released from British prison on Monday after negotiating a deal with the United States under which he agreed to plead guilty to a charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defence information.
The deal ensured that while Assange will admit guilt for violating the US espionage law, he will be spared additional prison time. He will also never be allowed to step into US territory.
On Wednesday, he appeared for a hearing in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean that are United States territory. Assange pled guilty to obtaining and publishing US military secrets on WikiLeaks.
“The prosecution of Julian Assange is unprecedented in the 100 years of the Espionage Act, it has never been used by United States to pursue a publisher, a journalist, like Mr Assange,” his lawyer Barry Pollack said after the hearing, reported The Guardian. “Mr Assange revealed truthful, newsworthy information, including revealing that the United States had committed war crimes.”
Pollack added that Assange has “suffered tremendously” in his fight for freedom of the press.
The hearing took place in Saipan because Assange did not want to travel to the continental United States and because of the Northern Mariana Islands’ proximity to Australia. He is an Australian citizen.
The United States’ case against Assange began after 2010-’11 when WikiLeaks had published secret military documents relating to America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Following the breach, Assange faced 18 charges for his alleged role in the leaks and faced a maximum of up to 175 years in prison, reported CNN. The British authorities at the time had asked the US to reassure that he would not receive the death penalty.
In 2012, Assange sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London after Swedish authorities sought his arrest on rape allegations. He was arrested by the British police in 2019 on behalf of the United States.
In April 2021, a British court held that Assange could not be extradited to the US, as doing so would be “oppressive by reason of mental harm”.
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