Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange will plead guilty to leaking US national security secrets and return to his native Australia, under a deal with the US justice department that ends a nearly 15-year battle over his prosecution.
Assange, 52, is expected to be sentenced to time served during a court appearance on Wednesday in Saipan, in the US Northern Mariana Islands, avoiding a potentially lengthy sentence in an American prison.
The plea agreement seeks to end an international fight to prosecute Assange that has been under way since sensitive US military documents, war logs and diplomatic cables were publicly leaked in 2010 and 2011, including footage of a US airstrike in Baghdad a few years earlier.
In one of the largest breaches of state secrets in US history, Assange was accused of encouraging and assisting army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in obtaining around 750 000 classified or sensitive documents.
The US criminally charged Assange in 2019 under the Trump administration with violating the Espionage Act and was seeking to extradite him from the UK, where he has been in prison ever since. The initial charges — 17 related to espionage and one to computer misuse — carried a maximum penalty of 175 years in prison if he was found guilty on all counts, although sentences for federal crimes are typically less than that.
Allies of Assange argued that the US case infringed on free speech and independent media, while national security officials said the leaks represented grave national security threats. Assange and his lawyers fought his extradition, arguing he couldn’t get a fair trial in the US and might have to face the death penalty.
Plea agreement
Negotiations towards a plea agreement heated up in recent months after President Joe Biden said he was considering a request from the Australian government to strike a deal that would allow Assange to return to Australia.
Under the plea agreement, Assange will appear in the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands. He will be sentenced immediately to time served during his 62 months in prison in the UK, then return to his native country. — Chris Strohm, with Katharine Gemmell, (c) 2024 Bloomberg LP
