After years of judicial saga, Julian Assangereleased from a prison in the United Kingdom, travels this Tuesday to an American island in the Pacific where the founder of WikiLeaks will plead guilty in court within the framework of an agreement that will allow him to regain his freedom.
The 52-year-old Australian, sued by US authorities for having revealed hundreds of thousands of confidential documents, will appear on Wednesday at 09:00 local time (23:00 GMT on Tuesday) before a federal court in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific, according to court documents published early Tuesday.
“Julian Assange is free” and left the United Kingdom and the high-security prison where he had been detained since 2019, WikiLeaks stated on the a flight at Stansted airport in London.
The aircraft landed in Bangkok around 12:30 p.m. (05:30 GMT) for a technical stopover, before taking off for Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands, at 9:25 p.m. (14:25 GMT).
There he is expected to plead guilty to “conspiracy to obtain and disclose information relating to national defense” according to court documents.
“Secret diplomacy”
Assange could be sentenced to 62 months in prison, but having served a similar period of preventive detention in London, it is expected that he will be able to return free to Australia.
“He will be a free man once the agreement is ratified by the judge” on Wednesday, he explained to the BBC Stella Assangehis wife and mother of two of his children.
The agreement involves her husband pleading guilty to one charge, which refers to “obtaining and disseminating information on national defense“, accurate.
His mother, Christine Assangesaid she was grateful that “the Calvary” of his son comes to an end. “This shows the importance and power of secret diplomacy.“, he claimed.
The Australian government reacted by saying that the Assange case “had gone on too long” and that his detention was no longer of any interest.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also welcomed his release and “significant progress towards a definitive solution to this case”.
“As we have repeatedly said, this case raised a number of human rights concerns.”said spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssel.
“He should not have been deprived of liberty for even a day for having published information of public interest“said Rebecca Vincent, campaign director of Reporters Without Borders.
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, celebrated “a democratic victory and the fight for press freedom”. “The world is a little better and less unfair today”he added.
Stella Assange She launched a call to raise financing to pay for the US$520,000 that her husband has to return to the Australian government after chartering the flight between London and Australia.
A 14 year saga
This agreement, which ends a saga of almost 14 years, which includes seven years of confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, comes two weeks before a new key hearing before the British courts.
On July 9 and 10, it was expected to examine the appeal Assange against his extradition to the United States.
Since 2019, when he was detained in a high-security prison in London, Assange has been fighting not to be handed over to American justice, which is pursuing him for publishing more than 700,000 confidential documents on military and diplomatic activities, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Australian, charged with 18 counts, faced up to 175 years in prison under the Espionage Act.
The British government approved his extradition in June 2022. However, in May two judges granted him the right to appeal.
Seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy
The founder of WikiLeaks was arrested by British police in April 2019 after spending seven years locked up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, from where he sought to avoid extradition to Sweden in a rape investigation, which was dismissed that same year.
In recent years, calls had increased for US President Joe Biden to drop the charges against him. Australia submitted a formal request in February, which the Democratic president said he was considering.
“That the Prime Minister (Australian, Anthony Albanese) sometimes publicly said ‘enough is enough’, and that Parliament backed him up, was significant and absolutely contemplated by the United States“Emma Shortis, a researcher in international and security affairs at the think tank The Australia Institute, told AFP.
Source: Gestion
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