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Plea hearing for WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange gets underway; part of deal with US to secure his freedom
A plane believed to be carrying WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrived in Bangkok on Tuesday. Assange will plead guilty to a felony charge in a deal with the U.S. Justice Department that will allow him to walk free and resolve a long-running legal saga that spanned multiple continents and centered on the publication of a trove of classified documents. Assange left a British prison on Monday and will appear later this week in the U.S. federal court in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Western Pacific. He’s expected to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information, the Justice Department said in a letter filed in court.
ASSANGE AT AIRPORT IN SAIPAN
BY MARI YAMAGUCHI, ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, KIMBERLY ESMORES AND ERIC TUCKER
June 25, 2024
SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AP) — A plea hearing for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange expected to result in his freedom has gotten underway in federal court in Saipan with a judge asking him preliminary questions about his education and background.
As part of a deal with the U.S. Justice Department, Assange is set to admit to a felony for publishing U.S. military secrets under a deal that spares him prison time in America after years spent jailed in the United Kingdom while fighting extradition. He is expected to return home to his native Australia.
He arrived in a white vehicle, wearing a dark suit with a tie loosened at the collar, and was briskly escorted into the courthouse while ignoring questions from reporters.
The hearing, taking place in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Pacific, is the stunning culmination of the U.S. government’s yearslong pursuit of the publisher who has been painted both as a hero and a reckless criminal for exposing hundreds of thousands of sensitive military documents.
The U.S. Justice Department agreed to hold the hearing on the remote island because Assange opposed coming to the continental U.S. and because it’s near Australia, where he will return after he enters his plea.
The deal — disclosed Monday night in court papers — represents the final chapter in a more than decade-long legal odyssey over the fate of Assange, whose hugely popular secret-sharing website made him a cause célèbre among press freedom advocates who said he acted as a journalist to expose U.S. military wrongdoing. U.S. prosecutors have said his actions recklessly put the country’s national security at risk.
Though the deal with prosecutors requires Assange to admit guilt to a single felony count, it also allows him to avoid spending any time in an American prison. He will get credit for the five years he has already spent in a high-security British prison while fighting extradition to the U.S. to face charges. Before being locked up in London, Assange spent years hiding out in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault, which he has denied.
The abrupt conclusion enables both sides to claim a degree of success, with the Justice Department able to resolve without trial a case that raised thorny legal issues and that might never have reached a jury at all given the plodding pace of the extradition process.
Last month, Assange won the right to appeal an extradition order after his lawyers argued that the U.S. government provided “blatantly inadequate” assurances that he would have the same free speech protections as an American citizen if extradited from Britain.
His wife, Stella Assange, told the BBC from Australia that it had been “touch and go” over 72 hours whether the deal would go ahead but she felt “elated” at the news. A lawyer who married the WikiLeaks founder in prison in 2022, she said details of the agreement would be made public once the judge had signed off on it.
“He will be a free man once it is signed off by a judge,” she said, adding that she still didn’t think it was real.
Assange on Monday left the London prison, where he has spent the last five years, after being granted bail during a secret hearing last week. He boarded a plane that landed hours later in Bangkok to refuel before taking off again toward Saipan. A video posted by WikiLeaks on X, showed Assange staring intently out the window at the blue sky as the plane headed toward the island.
“Imagine. From over 5 years in a small cell in a maximum security prison. Nearly 14 years detained in the U.K. To this,” WikiLeaks wrote. The top Australian diplomat in the United Kingdom accompanied Assange on the flight.
The guilty plea resolves a criminal case brought by Republican President Donald Trump’s administration over the receipt and publication of war logs and diplomatic cables that detailed U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prosecutors alleged that Assange conspired with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to obtain the records and published them without regard to American national security, including by releasing the names of human sources who provided information to U.S. forces.
Former Vice President Mike Pence called the new arrangement a “miscarriage of justice,” writing on X that Assange “endangered the lives of our troops in a time of war and should have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
But Assange’s activities drew an outpouring of support from press freedom advocates, who heralded his role in bringing to light military conduct that might otherwise have been concealed from view. Among the files published by WikiLeaks was a video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.
Australia for years has been calling on the U.S. government to drop the case against Assange, arguing there’s a disconnect between the treatment of Assange and Manning. Then-U.S. President Barack Obama commuted Manning’s 35-year sentence to seven years, which allowed her release in 2017.
“Regardless of the views that people have about Mr. Assange’s activities, the case has dragged on for too long,” said Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. “There’s nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration and we want him brought home to Australia.”
Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2012 and was granted political asylum after courts in England ruled he should be extradited to Sweden as part of a rape investigation in the Scandinavian country. He was arrested by British police after Ecuador’s government withdrew his asylum status in 2019 and then jailed for skipping bail when he first took shelter inside the embassy.
Although Sweden eventually dropped its sex crimes investigation because so much time had elapsed, Assange had remained in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison during the extradition fight with the U.S.
Assange made headlines again in 2016 after his website published Democratic emails that prosecutors say were stolen by Russian intelligence operatives. He was never charged in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, but the inquiry laid bare in stark detail the role that the hacking operation played in interfering in that year’s election on behalf of Trump.
___
Tucker reported from Fort Pierce, Florida, and Durkin Richer from Washington. Associated Press writers Colleen Long in Washington, Napat Kongsawad and David Rising in Bangkok, Jill Lawless and Brian Melley in London and Rod McGuirk in Melbourne, Australia, contributed to this report.
June 25, 2024
SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AP) — A plea hearing for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange expected to result in his freedom has gotten underway in federal court in Saipan with a judge asking him preliminary questions about his education and background.
As part of a deal with the U.S. Justice Department, Assange is set to admit to a felony for publishing U.S. military secrets under a deal that spares him prison time in America after years spent jailed in the United Kingdom while fighting extradition. He is expected to return home to his native Australia.
He arrived in a white vehicle, wearing a dark suit with a tie loosened at the collar, and was briskly escorted into the courthouse while ignoring questions from reporters.
The hearing, taking place in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Pacific, is the stunning culmination of the U.S. government’s yearslong pursuit of the publisher who has been painted both as a hero and a reckless criminal for exposing hundreds of thousands of sensitive military documents.
The U.S. Justice Department agreed to hold the hearing on the remote island because Assange opposed coming to the continental U.S. and because it’s near Australia, where he will return after he enters his plea.
The deal — disclosed Monday night in court papers — represents the final chapter in a more than decade-long legal odyssey over the fate of Assange, whose hugely popular secret-sharing website made him a cause célèbre among press freedom advocates who said he acted as a journalist to expose U.S. military wrongdoing. U.S. prosecutors have said his actions recklessly put the country’s national security at risk.
Though the deal with prosecutors requires Assange to admit guilt to a single felony count, it also allows him to avoid spending any time in an American prison. He will get credit for the five years he has already spent in a high-security British prison while fighting extradition to the U.S. to face charges. Before being locked up in London, Assange spent years hiding out in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault, which he has denied.
The abrupt conclusion enables both sides to claim a degree of success, with the Justice Department able to resolve without trial a case that raised thorny legal issues and that might never have reached a jury at all given the plodding pace of the extradition process.
Last month, Assange won the right to appeal an extradition order after his lawyers argued that the U.S. government provided “blatantly inadequate” assurances that he would have the same free speech protections as an American citizen if extradited from Britain.
His wife, Stella Assange, told the BBC from Australia that it had been “touch and go” over 72 hours whether the deal would go ahead but she felt “elated” at the news. A lawyer who married the WikiLeaks founder in prison in 2022, she said details of the agreement would be made public once the judge had signed off on it.
“He will be a free man once it is signed off by a judge,” she said, adding that she still didn’t think it was real.
Assange on Monday left the London prison, where he has spent the last five years, after being granted bail during a secret hearing last week. He boarded a plane that landed hours later in Bangkok to refuel before taking off again toward Saipan. A video posted by WikiLeaks on X, showed Assange staring intently out the window at the blue sky as the plane headed toward the island.
“Imagine. From over 5 years in a small cell in a maximum security prison. Nearly 14 years detained in the U.K. To this,” WikiLeaks wrote. The top Australian diplomat in the United Kingdom accompanied Assange on the flight.
The guilty plea resolves a criminal case brought by Republican President Donald Trump’s administration over the receipt and publication of war logs and diplomatic cables that detailed U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prosecutors alleged that Assange conspired with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to obtain the records and published them without regard to American national security, including by releasing the names of human sources who provided information to U.S. forces.
Former Vice President Mike Pence called the new arrangement a “miscarriage of justice,” writing on X that Assange “endangered the lives of our troops in a time of war and should have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
But Assange’s activities drew an outpouring of support from press freedom advocates, who heralded his role in bringing to light military conduct that might otherwise have been concealed from view. Among the files published by WikiLeaks was a video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.
Australia for years has been calling on the U.S. government to drop the case against Assange, arguing there’s a disconnect between the treatment of Assange and Manning. Then-U.S. President Barack Obama commuted Manning’s 35-year sentence to seven years, which allowed her release in 2017.
“Regardless of the views that people have about Mr. Assange’s activities, the case has dragged on for too long,” said Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. “There’s nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration and we want him brought home to Australia.”
Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2012 and was granted political asylum after courts in England ruled he should be extradited to Sweden as part of a rape investigation in the Scandinavian country. He was arrested by British police after Ecuador’s government withdrew his asylum status in 2019 and then jailed for skipping bail when he first took shelter inside the embassy.
Although Sweden eventually dropped its sex crimes investigation because so much time had elapsed, Assange had remained in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison during the extradition fight with the U.S.
Assange made headlines again in 2016 after his website published Democratic emails that prosecutors say were stolen by Russian intelligence operatives. He was never charged in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, but the inquiry laid bare in stark detail the role that the hacking operation played in interfering in that year’s election on behalf of Trump.
___
Tucker reported from Fort Pierce, Florida, and Durkin Richer from Washington. Associated Press writers Colleen Long in Washington, Napat Kongsawad and David Rising in Bangkok, Jill Lawless and Brian Melley in London and Rod McGuirk in Melbourne, Australia, contributed to this report.
Unseen diplomatic manoeuvres helped unlock Assange deal
By AFP
June 25, 2024
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange walking to board a plane from London, released from a high-security prison where he was held for five years — © WikiLeaks/AFP
Laura CHUNG
Behind closed doors, an Australia-US-UK diplomatic dance opened the way for a plea deal to free WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, analysts and a diplomat previously involved in the case told AFP.
The 52-year-old Australian citizen walked out of his five-year visit to London’s high-security Belmarsh prison on Monday after agreeing to plead guilty to a single count of revealing US national defence secrets.
Assange’s release had been under discussion “for a little while now”, said Jared Mondschein, director of research at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre.
“It’s been a few months in the making,” he told AFP on Tuesday.
US Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy — late president John F. Kennedy’s daughter — “has been talking about this in the last few months,” Mondschein said.
“She was flagging there is a way to resolve this.”
Under the plea agreement, Assange is flying from London to Saipan, capital of the Pacific US territory of Northern Mariana Islands, for a Wednesday morning court appearance.
He is expected to be sentenced to five years and two months in prison, with credit for the same amount of time spent behind bars in Britain — allowing him to return to his native Australia.
The United States did not want to drop the charges, Mondschein said.
– ‘Winds were shifting’ –
“They wanted him to plead guilty and they had to figure out how to do that without being in the United States,” he added.
“With that all said, it is not a fully done deal. It appears they have come to a plea deal but if there is anything we have learned in this long saga now, we should not make assumptions and see where we land in 24 to 48 hours.”
The tide shifted strongly in Assange’s favour after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was elected in May 2022 and made his release a priority, said a diplomat who did not want to be named so that they could speak freely.
Assange and his family had been advised previously that he should plead guilty and strike a deal because it would be difficult for the United States to drop the charges, said the diplomat, who worked on the case several years ago.
“The political winds were shifting and that also played a role in convincing people in the US that this had to be dealt with more urgently than it would have otherwise,” the diplomat told AFP.
Assange is expected to be sentenced to five years and two months in prison, with credit for the same amount of time spent behind bars in Britain — allowing him to return to his native Australia. — Image: ©AFP
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has repeatedly called for an end to Assange’s legal ordeal, saying: “Enough is enough”.
The country’s parliament even passed a motion this year with the prime minister’s support, calling for Assange to be allowed to return to his family.
The government had been working “behind the scenes diplomatically” with the US administration to advocate for his release, said Emma Shortis, senior researcher in international and security affairs at The Australia Institute thinktank.
– ‘Clear threat’ –
“I think part of the reason this has happened today is because it was becoming a significant issue for the relationship,” Shortis told AFP, notably since London, Washington and Canberra agreed on a nuclear-powered submarine pact, AUKUS.
“To be told fairly consistently that Australia’s relationship with the United States is based on shared democratic values served the argument that the AUKUS submarine deal is critical to that relationship,” Shortis said.
“And then to have the Assange case alongside that, with its clear threat to international free speech rights, was just really irreconcilable.”
Johan Lidberg, head of journalism at Monash University, noted that US President Joe Biden had let slip in April that his administration was “considering” an Australian request to drop the Assange prosecution.
“I think the momentum just built to a point where both sides — both Australia and the US, partly with the aid of the intermediary of the UK — were trying to find a way out of it,” Lidberg said.
All sides were seeking to back out of “this stalemate that wasn’t really going anywhere — and no one was really benefiting from it.”
By AFP
June 25, 2024
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange walking to board a plane from London, released from a high-security prison where he was held for five years — © WikiLeaks/AFP
Laura CHUNG
Behind closed doors, an Australia-US-UK diplomatic dance opened the way for a plea deal to free WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, analysts and a diplomat previously involved in the case told AFP.
The 52-year-old Australian citizen walked out of his five-year visit to London’s high-security Belmarsh prison on Monday after agreeing to plead guilty to a single count of revealing US national defence secrets.
Assange’s release had been under discussion “for a little while now”, said Jared Mondschein, director of research at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre.
“It’s been a few months in the making,” he told AFP on Tuesday.
US Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy — late president John F. Kennedy’s daughter — “has been talking about this in the last few months,” Mondschein said.
“She was flagging there is a way to resolve this.”
Under the plea agreement, Assange is flying from London to Saipan, capital of the Pacific US territory of Northern Mariana Islands, for a Wednesday morning court appearance.
He is expected to be sentenced to five years and two months in prison, with credit for the same amount of time spent behind bars in Britain — allowing him to return to his native Australia.
The United States did not want to drop the charges, Mondschein said.
– ‘Winds were shifting’ –
“They wanted him to plead guilty and they had to figure out how to do that without being in the United States,” he added.
“With that all said, it is not a fully done deal. It appears they have come to a plea deal but if there is anything we have learned in this long saga now, we should not make assumptions and see where we land in 24 to 48 hours.”
The tide shifted strongly in Assange’s favour after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was elected in May 2022 and made his release a priority, said a diplomat who did not want to be named so that they could speak freely.
Assange and his family had been advised previously that he should plead guilty and strike a deal because it would be difficult for the United States to drop the charges, said the diplomat, who worked on the case several years ago.
“The political winds were shifting and that also played a role in convincing people in the US that this had to be dealt with more urgently than it would have otherwise,” the diplomat told AFP.
Assange is expected to be sentenced to five years and two months in prison, with credit for the same amount of time spent behind bars in Britain — allowing him to return to his native Australia. — Image: ©AFP
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has repeatedly called for an end to Assange’s legal ordeal, saying: “Enough is enough”.
The country’s parliament even passed a motion this year with the prime minister’s support, calling for Assange to be allowed to return to his family.
The government had been working “behind the scenes diplomatically” with the US administration to advocate for his release, said Emma Shortis, senior researcher in international and security affairs at The Australia Institute thinktank.
– ‘Clear threat’ –
“I think part of the reason this has happened today is because it was becoming a significant issue for the relationship,” Shortis told AFP, notably since London, Washington and Canberra agreed on a nuclear-powered submarine pact, AUKUS.
“To be told fairly consistently that Australia’s relationship with the United States is based on shared democratic values served the argument that the AUKUS submarine deal is critical to that relationship,” Shortis said.
“And then to have the Assange case alongside that, with its clear threat to international free speech rights, was just really irreconcilable.”
Johan Lidberg, head of journalism at Monash University, noted that US President Joe Biden had let slip in April that his administration was “considering” an Australian request to drop the Assange prosecution.
“I think the momentum just built to a point where both sides — both Australia and the US, partly with the aid of the intermediary of the UK — were trying to find a way out of it,” Lidberg said.
All sides were seeking to back out of “this stalemate that wasn’t really going anywhere — and no one was really benefiting from it.”
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange stops in Bangkok on his way to a US court and later freedom
A plane believed to be carrying WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrived in Bangkok on Tuesday. Assange will plead guilty to a felony charge in a deal with the U.S. Justice Department that will allow him to walk free and resolve a long-running legal saga that spanned multiple continents and centered on the publication of a trove of classified documents. Assange left a British prison on Monday and will appear later this week in the U.S. federal court in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Western Pacific. He’s expected to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information, the Justice Department said in a letter filed in court.
He’s expected to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information, according to the U.S. Justice Department in a letter filed in court.
Assange is expected to return to his home country of Australia after his plea and sentencing. The hearing is taking place in Saipan because of Assange’s opposition to traveling to the continental U.S. and the court’s proximity to Australia, prosecutors said.
The guilty plea, which must be approved by a judge, brings an abrupt conclusion to a criminal case of international intrigue and to the U.S. government’s yearslong pursuit of a publisher whose hugely popular secret-sharing website made him a cause célèbre among many press freedom advocates who said he acted as a journalist to expose U.S. military wrongdoing. Investigators, in contrast, have repeatedly asserted that his actions broke laws meant to protect sensitive information and put the country’s national security at risk.
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Stella Assange told the BBC from Australia that it had been “touch and go” over the past 72 hours whether the deal would go ahead but she felt “elated” at the news. A lawyer who married the WikiLeaks founder in prison in 2022, she said details of the agreement would be made public once the judge had signed off on it.
“He will be a free man once it is signed off by a judge,” she said, adding that she still didn’t think it was real.
She told Britain’s PA news agency that the flight was costing Assange $500,000 and they would start a fundraising campaign to help pay for it.
Kristinn Hrafnsson, editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, said the deal for Assange came about after the growing involvement of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
“This is the result of a long, long process which has been going on for some time. It has been a tough battle, but the focus now is on Julian being reunited with his family,” Hrafnsson told the PA news agency. “The most important thing is that Julian is free and he is finally able to enjoy the big blue sky.”
In a statement posted on the social media platform X, WikiLeaks said Assange boarded a plane and departed Monday after leaving the British prison where he has spent the last five years. WikiLeaks applauded the announcement of the deal, saying it was grateful for “all who stood by us, fought for us, and remained utterly committed in the fight for his freedom.
Albanese told Parliament that an Australian envoy had flown with Assange from London.
Buildings are reflected in the window as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is taken from court, where he appeared on charges, Wednesday May 1, 2019 of jumping British bail seven years ago, in London. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)
“Regardless of the views that people have about Mr. Assange’s activities, the case has dragged on for too long,” Albanese said. “There’s nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration and we want him brought home to Australia,.”
The deal ensures that Assange will admit guilt while also sparing him from additional prison time. He had spent years hiding in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London after Swedish authorities sought his arrest on rape allegations before being locked up in the United Kingdom.
Assange is expected to be sentenced to the five years he has already spent in the British prison while fighting extradition to the U.S. to face charges, a process that has played out in a series of hearings in London. Last month, he won the right to appeal an extradition order after his lawyers argued that the U.S. government provided “blatantly inadequate” assurances that he would have the same free speech protections as an American citizen if extradited from Britain.
Assange has been heralded by many around the world as a hero who brought to light military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Among the files published by WikiLeaks was a video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.
But his reputation was also tarnished by rape allegations, which he has denied.
The Justice Department’s indictment unsealed in 2019 accused Assange of encouraging and helping U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks published in 2010. Prosecutors had accused Assange of damaging national security by publishing documents that harmed the U.S. and its allies and aided its adversaries.
The case was lambasted by press advocates and Assange supporters. Federal prosecutors defended it as targeting conduct that went way beyond that of a journalist gathering information, amounting to an attempt to solicit, steal and indiscriminately publish classified government documents.
The plea agreement comes months after President Joe Biden said he was considering a request from Australia to drop the U.S. push to prosecute Assange. The White House was not involved in the decision to resolve Assange’s case, according to a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the case and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Assange made headlines again in 2016 after his website published Democratic emails that prosecutors say were stolen by Russian intelligence operatives. He was never charged in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, but the inquiry laid bare in stark detail the role that the hacking operation played in interfering in that year’s election on behalf of then-Republican candidate Donald Trump.
During the Obama administration, Justice Department officials mulled charges for Assange but were unsure a case would hold up in court and were concerned it could be hard to justify prosecuting him for acts similar to those of a conventional journalist.
The posture changed in the Trump administration, however, with former Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2017 calling Assange’s arrest a priority.
Assange’s family and supporters have said his physical and mental health have suffered during more than a decade of legal battles.
Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2012 and was granted political asylum after courts in England ruled he should be extradited to Sweden as part of a rape investigation in the Scandinavian country. He was arrested by British police after Ecuador’s government withdrew his asylum status in 2019 and then jailed for skipping bail when he first took shelter inside the embassy.
Although Sweden eventually dropped its sex crimes investigation because so much time had elapsed, Assange had remained in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison during the extradition battle with the U.S.
___
Tucker reported from Fort Pierce, Florida, and Durkin Richer from Washington. Associated Press writers Colleen Long in Washington, Napat Kongsawad and David Rising in Bangkok, Jill Lawless and Brian Melley in London and Rod McGuirk in Melbourne, Australia, contributed to this report.
Australian leaders cautiously welcome expected plea that could bring WikiLeaks founder Assange home
Australian lawmakers have cautiously welcomed developments that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will plead guilty to a felony charge in a deal with the U.S. Justice Department that will allow him to walk free and resolve a long-running legal saga that spanned multiple continents and centered on the publication of a trove of classified documents
BY ROD MCGUIRK
June 25, 2024
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australian leaders cautiously welcomed an expected plea agreement that could set free Julian Assange, who was pursued for years over WikiLeaks’ publication of a trove of classified documents.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday there was nothing to be gained by keeping the Australian incarcerated.
A plane thought to be carrying Assange landed Tuesday in Bangkok as he heads to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Pacific midway between Australia and Japan, where he is expected to appear in a U.S. federal court Wednesday local time.
He is expected to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information, the U.S. Justice Department said in a letter filed in court.
Assange is expected to return to Australia if a judge accepts the plea agreement.
Public support for Assange has grown in Australia during the seven years he has spent avoiding extradition to the United States by hiding in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London and later during his five years in Belmarsh Prison.
Albanese has been lobbying since his government was elected in 2022 for the United States to end its prosecution of Assange, and his plight was seen as a test of the prime minister’s leverage with President Joe Biden.
Albanese had been a senior minister in a center-left Labor Party government that in 2010 staunchly backed U.S. criticisms of WikiLeaks’ classified information dumps. But Assange has breached no Australian law.
Albanese told Parliament that Australian High Commissioner to the U.K. 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,” Albanese added.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong acknowledged the advocacy of a range of lawmakers on Assange’s behalf, including delegates of the Bring Julian Assange Parliamentary Group who traveled to Washington last year with a letter signed by 60 Australian lawmakers calling for the prosecution to end.
Wong said Albanese had led the Australian effort, personally raising Assange with Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
“We want to see Mr. Assange reunited with his family in Australia,” Wong told the Senate.
Wong also revealed that Assange has rejected Australia’s offer of consular visits for years until April last year when Smith made the first of his several prison visits.
Australia had argued there was a disconnect between the U.S. treatment of Assange and U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, a WikiLeaks source. Then-U.S. President Barack Obama commuted Manning’s 35-year sentence to seven years, which allowed her release in 2017.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken pushed back against Albanese’s position during a visit to Australia last year, saying Assange was accused of “very serious criminal conduct” in publishing a trove of classified U.S. documents more than a decade ago.
Support for Assange crossed political party lines in Australia.
Opposition lawmaker and Assange supporter Barnaby Joyce, a former deputy prime minister, said the plea deal was an encouraging development.
“We’ve just got to be still cautious, still cautious on how this proceeds because the end has not arrived,” Joyce told reporters in Australia’s Parliament House. He said Assange should not prosecuted because be committed no offense in the United States.
“If you ask me do I think what he did was morally correct? No, it wasn’t,” Joyce said. “But the issue for me is extraterritoriality.”
Opposition spokesman on foreign affairs Simon Birmingham also welcomed the apparent end to the prosecution.
“We have consistently said that the U.S. and U.K. justice systems should be respected,” Birmingham said on social media.
A motion that called for the U.S. and Britain to bring the “matter to a close so that Mr. Assange can return home to his family in Australia” was supported by 86 lawmakers including Albanese in the 151-seat House of Representatives in February.
Assange’s mother, Christine Assange, said the plea deal “shows the importance and power of quiet diplomacy.”
“I am grateful that my son’s ordeal is finally coming to an end,” she said in a statement.
His father John Shipton used a radio interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp. in Melbourne to thank his son’s supporters.
“It looks as though Julian will be free to come back to Australia and my thanks and congratulations to all his supporters in Australia who made it possible and of course Prime Minister Anthony Albanese,” Shipton said.
Julian Assange’s wife and mother of his two children, Stella Assange, was in Sydney awaiting for her husband’s return to Australia.
She posted on social media an image of her talking to her husband on FaceTime and with the Sydney Opera House in the background. She said he was speaking from London’s Stansted Airport before leaving the U.K.
Julian Assange’s lawyer Geoffrey Robertson likened the case to the government-to-government negotiations behind a plea deal in 2007 that enabled Australian al-Qaida supporter David Hicks to be repatriated from the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 by the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance as a suspected enemy combatant.
“It was much tougher with Assange because the Pentagon was so determined to punish him,” Robertson told ABC. “In the end, I think partly because Mr. Biden wanted to clear this off his desk in an election year ... it has been resolved.”
Julian Assange was living in the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2013 when he made failed bid for election to the Australian Senate as a candidate for the short-lived WiliLeaks Party.
Timeline of the Julian Assange legal saga over extradition to the US on espionage charges
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrivies at Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court in London, Feb. 7, 2011. Assange will plead guilty to a felony charge in a deal with the U.S. Justice Department that will free him from prison and resolve a long-running legal saga over the publication of a trove of classified documents. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, files)
This will allow him to walk free and resolve a long-running legal saga that spanned multiple continents and centered on the publication of a trove of classified documents.
Assange left a high-security London prison where he was in custody since 2019, after spending seven years in self-exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
Here is a look at key events in the long-running legal saga:
— 2006: Assange founded WikiLeaks in Australia. The group begins publishing sensitive or classified documents.
— 2010: In a series of posts, WikiLeaks releases almost half a million documents relating to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
— August 2010: Swedish prosecutors issue an arrest warrant for Assange based on one woman’s allegation of rape and another’s allegation of molestation. The warrant is withdrawn shortly afterward, with prosecutors citing insufficient evidence for the rape allegation. Assange denies the allegations.
— September 2010: Sweden’s director of prosecutions reopens the rape investigation. Assange leaves Sweden for Britain.
— November 2010: Swedish police issue an international arrest warrant for Assange.
— December 2010: Assange surrenders to police in London and is detained pending an extradition hearing. The High Court grants Assange bail.
— February 2011: A district court in Britain rules Assange should be extradited to Sweden.
— June 2012: Assange enters the Ecuadorian Embassy in central London, seeking asylum, after his bids to appeal the extradition ruling fail. Police set up an around-the-clock guard to arrest him if he steps outside.
— August 2012: Assange is granted political asylum by Ecuador.
— July 2014: Assange loses his bid to have an arrest warrant issued in Sweden against him canceled. A judge in Stockholm upholds the warrant alleging sexual offenses against two women.
— March 2015: Swedish prosecutors ask to question Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy.
— August 2015: Swedish prosecutors drop investigations into some allegations against Assange because of the statute of limitations; an investigation into a rape allegation remains active.
A supporter of Julian Assange, with a poster of the WikiLeaks founder, joins other protesters to block a major road in front of Westminster Magistrates Court in London, Thursday, May 2, 2019. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
— October 2015: Metropolitan Police end their 24-hour guard outside the Ecuadorian Embassy but say they’ll arrest Assange if he leaves, ending a three-year police operation estimated to have cost millions.
— February 2016: Assange claims “total vindication” as the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention finds that he has been unlawfully detained and recommends he be immediately freed and given compensation. Britain calls the finding “frankly ridiculous.”
— September 2018: Ecuador’s president says his country and Britain are working on a legal solution to allow Assange to leave the embassy.
— October 2018: Assange seeks a court injunction pressing Ecuador to provide him basic rights he said the country agreed to when it first granted him asylum.
— November 2018: A U.S. court filing that appears to inadvertently reveal the existence of a sealed criminal case against Assange is discovered by a researcher. No details are confirmed.
— April 2019: Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno blames WikiLeaks for recent corruption allegations; Ecuador’s government revokes Assange’s asylum status. London police haul Assange out of the Ecuadorian Embassy and arrest him for breaching bail conditions in 2012, as well as on behalf of U.S. authorities.
— May 2019: Assange is sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for jumping bail in 2012.
— May 2019: The U.S. government indicts Assange on 18 charges over WikiLeaks’ publication of classified documents. Prosecutors say he conspired with U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to hack into a Pentagon computer and release secret diplomatic cables and military files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
— November 2019: Swedish prosecutor drops rape investigation.
— May 2020: An extradition hearing for Assange is delayed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
— June 2020: The U.S. files a new indictment against Assange that prosecutors say underscores Assange’s efforts to procure and release classified information.
— January 2021: A British judge rules Assange cannot be extradited to the U.S. because he is likely to kill himself if held under harsh U.S. prison conditions.
— July 2021: The High Court grants the U.S. government permission to appeal the lower court’s ruling blocking Assange’s extradition.
— December 2021: The High Court rules that U.S. assurances about Assange’s detention are enough to guarantee he would be treated humanely.
— March 2022: Britain’s Supreme Court refuses to grant Assange permission to appeal against his extradition.
— June 2022: Britain’s government orders the extradition of Assange to the United States. Assange appeals.
— May 2023: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Assange should be released and “nothing is served” by his ongoing incarceration.
— June 2023: A High Court judge rules Assange cannot appeal his extradition.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gestures on the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy prior to speaking, in London, Friday May 19, 2017. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)
— Feb. 20, 2024: Assange’s lawyers launch a final legal bid to stop his extradition at the High Court.
— March 26, 2024: Two High Court judges in London give U.S. authorities three more weeks to submit further assurances, including a guarantee that Assange won’t get the death penalty, before deciding whether they will grant him a new appeal against his extradition.
— May 20, 2024: The two High Court judges rule that Assange can mount a new appeal based on arguments about whether he will receive free-speech protections or be at a disadvantage because he is not a U.S. citizen. The date of the hearing has yet to be determined.
— June 24, 2024: The U.S. Justice Department says in a letter filed in court that, under a deal with the agency, Assange will be allowed him to walk free in return for pleading guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information.
SYLVIA HUI
Hui, based in London, reports on UK news for The Associated Press with particular interest in foreign and social affairs and human rights.
A plane believed to be carrying WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrived in Bangkok on Tuesday. Assange will plead guilty to a felony charge in a deal with the U.S. Justice Department that will allow him to walk free and resolve a long-running legal saga that spanned multiple continents and centered on the publication of a trove of classified documents. Assange left a British prison on Monday and will appear later this week in the U.S. federal court in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Western Pacific. He’s expected to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information, the Justice Department said in a letter filed in court.
He’s expected to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information, according to the U.S. Justice Department in a letter filed in court.
Assange is expected to return to his home country of Australia after his plea and sentencing. The hearing is taking place in Saipan because of Assange’s opposition to traveling to the continental U.S. and the court’s proximity to Australia, prosecutors said.
The guilty plea, which must be approved by a judge, brings an abrupt conclusion to a criminal case of international intrigue and to the U.S. government’s yearslong pursuit of a publisher whose hugely popular secret-sharing website made him a cause célèbre among many press freedom advocates who said he acted as a journalist to expose U.S. military wrongdoing. Investigators, in contrast, have repeatedly asserted that his actions broke laws meant to protect sensitive information and put the country’s national security at risk.
RELATED COVERAGE
Timeline of the Assange legal saga over extradition to the US on espionage charges
A look at Julian Assange and how the long-jailed WikiLeaks founder is now on the verge of freedom
Stella Assange told the BBC from Australia that it had been “touch and go” over the past 72 hours whether the deal would go ahead but she felt “elated” at the news. A lawyer who married the WikiLeaks founder in prison in 2022, she said details of the agreement would be made public once the judge had signed off on it.
“He will be a free man once it is signed off by a judge,” she said, adding that she still didn’t think it was real.
She told Britain’s PA news agency that the flight was costing Assange $500,000 and they would start a fundraising campaign to help pay for it.
Kristinn Hrafnsson, editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, said the deal for Assange came about after the growing involvement of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
“This is the result of a long, long process which has been going on for some time. It has been a tough battle, but the focus now is on Julian being reunited with his family,” Hrafnsson told the PA news agency. “The most important thing is that Julian is free and he is finally able to enjoy the big blue sky.”
In a statement posted on the social media platform X, WikiLeaks said Assange boarded a plane and departed Monday after leaving the British prison where he has spent the last five years. WikiLeaks applauded the announcement of the deal, saying it was grateful for “all who stood by us, fought for us, and remained utterly committed in the fight for his freedom.
Albanese told Parliament that an Australian envoy had flown with Assange from London.
Buildings are reflected in the window as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is taken from court, where he appeared on charges, Wednesday May 1, 2019 of jumping British bail seven years ago, in London. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)
“Regardless of the views that people have about Mr. Assange’s activities, the case has dragged on for too long,” Albanese said. “There’s nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration and we want him brought home to Australia,.”
The deal ensures that Assange will admit guilt while also sparing him from additional prison time. He had spent years hiding in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London after Swedish authorities sought his arrest on rape allegations before being locked up in the United Kingdom.
Assange is expected to be sentenced to the five years he has already spent in the British prison while fighting extradition to the U.S. to face charges, a process that has played out in a series of hearings in London. Last month, he won the right to appeal an extradition order after his lawyers argued that the U.S. government provided “blatantly inadequate” assurances that he would have the same free speech protections as an American citizen if extradited from Britain.
Assange has been heralded by many around the world as a hero who brought to light military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Among the files published by WikiLeaks was a video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.
But his reputation was also tarnished by rape allegations, which he has denied.
The Justice Department’s indictment unsealed in 2019 accused Assange of encouraging and helping U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks published in 2010. Prosecutors had accused Assange of damaging national security by publishing documents that harmed the U.S. and its allies and aided its adversaries.
The case was lambasted by press advocates and Assange supporters. Federal prosecutors defended it as targeting conduct that went way beyond that of a journalist gathering information, amounting to an attempt to solicit, steal and indiscriminately publish classified government documents.
The plea agreement comes months after President Joe Biden said he was considering a request from Australia to drop the U.S. push to prosecute Assange. The White House was not involved in the decision to resolve Assange’s case, according to a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the case and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Assange made headlines again in 2016 after his website published Democratic emails that prosecutors say were stolen by Russian intelligence operatives. He was never charged in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, but the inquiry laid bare in stark detail the role that the hacking operation played in interfering in that year’s election on behalf of then-Republican candidate Donald Trump.
During the Obama administration, Justice Department officials mulled charges for Assange but were unsure a case would hold up in court and were concerned it could be hard to justify prosecuting him for acts similar to those of a conventional journalist.
The posture changed in the Trump administration, however, with former Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2017 calling Assange’s arrest a priority.
Assange’s family and supporters have said his physical and mental health have suffered during more than a decade of legal battles.
Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2012 and was granted political asylum after courts in England ruled he should be extradited to Sweden as part of a rape investigation in the Scandinavian country. He was arrested by British police after Ecuador’s government withdrew his asylum status in 2019 and then jailed for skipping bail when he first took shelter inside the embassy.
Although Sweden eventually dropped its sex crimes investigation because so much time had elapsed, Assange had remained in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison during the extradition battle with the U.S.
___
Tucker reported from Fort Pierce, Florida, and Durkin Richer from Washington. Associated Press writers Colleen Long in Washington, Napat Kongsawad and David Rising in Bangkok, Jill Lawless and Brian Melley in London and Rod McGuirk in Melbourne, Australia, contributed to this report.
Australian leaders cautiously welcome expected plea that could bring WikiLeaks founder Assange home
Australian lawmakers have cautiously welcomed developments that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will plead guilty to a felony charge in a deal with the U.S. Justice Department that will allow him to walk free and resolve a long-running legal saga that spanned multiple continents and centered on the publication of a trove of classified documents
BY ROD MCGUIRK
June 25, 2024
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australian leaders cautiously welcomed an expected plea agreement that could set free Julian Assange, who was pursued for years over WikiLeaks’ publication of a trove of classified documents.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday there was nothing to be gained by keeping the Australian incarcerated.
A plane thought to be carrying Assange landed Tuesday in Bangkok as he heads to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Pacific midway between Australia and Japan, where he is expected to appear in a U.S. federal court Wednesday local time.
He is expected to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information, the U.S. Justice Department said in a letter filed in court.
Assange is expected to return to Australia if a judge accepts the plea agreement.
Public support for Assange has grown in Australia during the seven years he has spent avoiding extradition to the United States by hiding in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London and later during his five years in Belmarsh Prison.
Albanese has been lobbying since his government was elected in 2022 for the United States to end its prosecution of Assange, and his plight was seen as a test of the prime minister’s leverage with President Joe Biden.
Albanese had been a senior minister in a center-left Labor Party government that in 2010 staunchly backed U.S. criticisms of WikiLeaks’ classified information dumps. But Assange has breached no Australian law.
Albanese told Parliament that Australian High Commissioner to the U.K. 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,” Albanese added.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong acknowledged the advocacy of a range of lawmakers on Assange’s behalf, including delegates of the Bring Julian Assange Parliamentary Group who traveled to Washington last year with a letter signed by 60 Australian lawmakers calling for the prosecution to end.
Wong said Albanese had led the Australian effort, personally raising Assange with Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
“We want to see Mr. Assange reunited with his family in Australia,” Wong told the Senate.
Wong also revealed that Assange has rejected Australia’s offer of consular visits for years until April last year when Smith made the first of his several prison visits.
Australia had argued there was a disconnect between the U.S. treatment of Assange and U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, a WikiLeaks source. Then-U.S. President Barack Obama commuted Manning’s 35-year sentence to seven years, which allowed her release in 2017.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken pushed back against Albanese’s position during a visit to Australia last year, saying Assange was accused of “very serious criminal conduct” in publishing a trove of classified U.S. documents more than a decade ago.
Support for Assange crossed political party lines in Australia.
Opposition lawmaker and Assange supporter Barnaby Joyce, a former deputy prime minister, said the plea deal was an encouraging development.
“We’ve just got to be still cautious, still cautious on how this proceeds because the end has not arrived,” Joyce told reporters in Australia’s Parliament House. He said Assange should not prosecuted because be committed no offense in the United States.
“If you ask me do I think what he did was morally correct? No, it wasn’t,” Joyce said. “But the issue for me is extraterritoriality.”
Opposition spokesman on foreign affairs Simon Birmingham also welcomed the apparent end to the prosecution.
“We have consistently said that the U.S. and U.K. justice systems should be respected,” Birmingham said on social media.
A motion that called for the U.S. and Britain to bring the “matter to a close so that Mr. Assange can return home to his family in Australia” was supported by 86 lawmakers including Albanese in the 151-seat House of Representatives in February.
Assange’s mother, Christine Assange, said the plea deal “shows the importance and power of quiet diplomacy.”
“I am grateful that my son’s ordeal is finally coming to an end,” she said in a statement.
His father John Shipton used a radio interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp. in Melbourne to thank his son’s supporters.
“It looks as though Julian will be free to come back to Australia and my thanks and congratulations to all his supporters in Australia who made it possible and of course Prime Minister Anthony Albanese,” Shipton said.
Julian Assange’s wife and mother of his two children, Stella Assange, was in Sydney awaiting for her husband’s return to Australia.
She posted on social media an image of her talking to her husband on FaceTime and with the Sydney Opera House in the background. She said he was speaking from London’s Stansted Airport before leaving the U.K.
Julian Assange’s lawyer Geoffrey Robertson likened the case to the government-to-government negotiations behind a plea deal in 2007 that enabled Australian al-Qaida supporter David Hicks to be repatriated from the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 by the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance as a suspected enemy combatant.
“It was much tougher with Assange because the Pentagon was so determined to punish him,” Robertson told ABC. “In the end, I think partly because Mr. Biden wanted to clear this off his desk in an election year ... it has been resolved.”
Julian Assange was living in the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2013 when he made failed bid for election to the Australian Senate as a candidate for the short-lived WiliLeaks Party.
Timeline of the Julian Assange legal saga over extradition to the US on espionage charges
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrivies at Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court in London, Feb. 7, 2011. Assange will plead guilty to a felony charge in a deal with the U.S. Justice Department that will free him from prison and resolve a long-running legal saga over the publication of a trove of classified documents. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, files)
This will allow him to walk free and resolve a long-running legal saga that spanned multiple continents and centered on the publication of a trove of classified documents.
Assange left a high-security London prison where he was in custody since 2019, after spending seven years in self-exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
Here is a look at key events in the long-running legal saga:
— 2006: Assange founded WikiLeaks in Australia. The group begins publishing sensitive or classified documents.
— 2010: In a series of posts, WikiLeaks releases almost half a million documents relating to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
— August 2010: Swedish prosecutors issue an arrest warrant for Assange based on one woman’s allegation of rape and another’s allegation of molestation. The warrant is withdrawn shortly afterward, with prosecutors citing insufficient evidence for the rape allegation. Assange denies the allegations.
— September 2010: Sweden’s director of prosecutions reopens the rape investigation. Assange leaves Sweden for Britain.
— November 2010: Swedish police issue an international arrest warrant for Assange.
— December 2010: Assange surrenders to police in London and is detained pending an extradition hearing. The High Court grants Assange bail.
— February 2011: A district court in Britain rules Assange should be extradited to Sweden.
— June 2012: Assange enters the Ecuadorian Embassy in central London, seeking asylum, after his bids to appeal the extradition ruling fail. Police set up an around-the-clock guard to arrest him if he steps outside.
— August 2012: Assange is granted political asylum by Ecuador.
— July 2014: Assange loses his bid to have an arrest warrant issued in Sweden against him canceled. A judge in Stockholm upholds the warrant alleging sexual offenses against two women.
— March 2015: Swedish prosecutors ask to question Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy.
— August 2015: Swedish prosecutors drop investigations into some allegations against Assange because of the statute of limitations; an investigation into a rape allegation remains active.
A supporter of Julian Assange, with a poster of the WikiLeaks founder, joins other protesters to block a major road in front of Westminster Magistrates Court in London, Thursday, May 2, 2019. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
— October 2015: Metropolitan Police end their 24-hour guard outside the Ecuadorian Embassy but say they’ll arrest Assange if he leaves, ending a three-year police operation estimated to have cost millions.
— February 2016: Assange claims “total vindication” as the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention finds that he has been unlawfully detained and recommends he be immediately freed and given compensation. Britain calls the finding “frankly ridiculous.”
— September 2018: Ecuador’s president says his country and Britain are working on a legal solution to allow Assange to leave the embassy.
— October 2018: Assange seeks a court injunction pressing Ecuador to provide him basic rights he said the country agreed to when it first granted him asylum.
— November 2018: A U.S. court filing that appears to inadvertently reveal the existence of a sealed criminal case against Assange is discovered by a researcher. No details are confirmed.
— April 2019: Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno blames WikiLeaks for recent corruption allegations; Ecuador’s government revokes Assange’s asylum status. London police haul Assange out of the Ecuadorian Embassy and arrest him for breaching bail conditions in 2012, as well as on behalf of U.S. authorities.
— May 2019: Assange is sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for jumping bail in 2012.
— May 2019: The U.S. government indicts Assange on 18 charges over WikiLeaks’ publication of classified documents. Prosecutors say he conspired with U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to hack into a Pentagon computer and release secret diplomatic cables and military files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
— November 2019: Swedish prosecutor drops rape investigation.
— May 2020: An extradition hearing for Assange is delayed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
— June 2020: The U.S. files a new indictment against Assange that prosecutors say underscores Assange’s efforts to procure and release classified information.
— January 2021: A British judge rules Assange cannot be extradited to the U.S. because he is likely to kill himself if held under harsh U.S. prison conditions.
— July 2021: The High Court grants the U.S. government permission to appeal the lower court’s ruling blocking Assange’s extradition.
— December 2021: The High Court rules that U.S. assurances about Assange’s detention are enough to guarantee he would be treated humanely.
— March 2022: Britain’s Supreme Court refuses to grant Assange permission to appeal against his extradition.
— June 2022: Britain’s government orders the extradition of Assange to the United States. Assange appeals.
— May 2023: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Assange should be released and “nothing is served” by his ongoing incarceration.
— June 2023: A High Court judge rules Assange cannot appeal his extradition.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gestures on the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy prior to speaking, in London, Friday May 19, 2017. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)
— Feb. 20, 2024: Assange’s lawyers launch a final legal bid to stop his extradition at the High Court.
— March 26, 2024: Two High Court judges in London give U.S. authorities three more weeks to submit further assurances, including a guarantee that Assange won’t get the death penalty, before deciding whether they will grant him a new appeal against his extradition.
— May 20, 2024: The two High Court judges rule that Assange can mount a new appeal based on arguments about whether he will receive free-speech protections or be at a disadvantage because he is not a U.S. citizen. The date of the hearing has yet to be determined.
— June 24, 2024: The U.S. Justice Department says in a letter filed in court that, under a deal with the agency, Assange will be allowed him to walk free in return for pleading guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information.
SYLVIA HUI
Hui, based in London, reports on UK news for The Associated Press with particular interest in foreign and social affairs and human rights.
Issued on: 25/06/2024 -
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is due to plead guilty on Wednesday to violating US espionage law, in a deal that will end his imprisonment in Britain and allow him to return home to Australia, ending a 14-year legal odyssey.
01:53 Video by: FRANCE 24
Julian Assange expected to return to Australia
Issued on: 25/06/2024 -
Issued on: 25/06/2024 -
France 24 correspondent in Washington DC Fraser Jackson explains the deal by which Assange is expected to plead guilty to one espionage charge and return him his freedom.
Julian Assange: Australia wants WikiLeaks founder back
Why does the US want to extradite Julian Assange?
Assange is accused of publishing around 700,000 classified documents, starting in 2010, that shed a light on the US secrets about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Australian sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he stayed for seven years to avoid extradition to Sweden on charges of sexual assault which were later dropped.
He was eventually kicked out of the embassy and was arrested; he has been held in London's high-security Belmarsh Prison since 2019.
US prosecutors have said Assange helped US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal and leak the classified diplomatic and military documents.
Manning was sentenced to 35-years in prison, but her sentence was commuted to just seven by former President Barack Obama, allowing her to be released in 2017. She was however rearrested in 2019 and stayed behind bars for another year for her refusal to testify in a case involving Julian Assange.
ab/dj (AFP, AP)
DW FEB. 15, 2024
Following years of legal battles against Julian Assange, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says that "enough is enough." The WikiLeaks founder is facing extradition to the US from the UK.
Following years of legal battles against Julian Assange, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says that "enough is enough." The WikiLeaks founder is facing extradition to the US from the UK.
Assange's arrest and extradition have sparked worldwide protests
Image: Alexander Bogatyrev/ZUMA Press/picture alliance
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Thursday called for the release of Julian Assange of legal pursuit by US and UK authorities.
The 52-year-old WikiLeaks founder, who is an Australian citizen, has been trapped in legal limbo for years after releasing a raft of top secret US documents on war in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2010. He is currently being held in London but is facing extradition to the US on charges of espionage.
"People will have a range of views about Mr. Assange's conduct," Albanese told parliament.
"But regardless of where people stand, this thing cannot just go on and on and on indefinitely."
Australian parliament calls for Assange to be returned home
The WikiLeaks founder will head to the UK's High Court of Justice next week in an attempt to appeal his extradition.
On Wednesday, the Australian parliament passed a motion calling for Assange to be returned to his home country. The motion had been put forward by independent Australian lawmaker Andrew Wilkie and supported by the prime minister.
The motion called on the US and UK to bring the "matter to a close so that Mr. Assange can return home to his family in Australia."
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Thursday called for the release of Julian Assange of legal pursuit by US and UK authorities.
The 52-year-old WikiLeaks founder, who is an Australian citizen, has been trapped in legal limbo for years after releasing a raft of top secret US documents on war in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2010. He is currently being held in London but is facing extradition to the US on charges of espionage.
"People will have a range of views about Mr. Assange's conduct," Albanese told parliament.
"But regardless of where people stand, this thing cannot just go on and on and on indefinitely."
Australian parliament calls for Assange to be returned home
The WikiLeaks founder will head to the UK's High Court of Justice next week in an attempt to appeal his extradition.
On Wednesday, the Australian parliament passed a motion calling for Assange to be returned to his home country. The motion had been put forward by independent Australian lawmaker Andrew Wilkie and supported by the prime minister.
The motion called on the US and UK to bring the "matter to a close so that Mr. Assange can return home to his family in Australia."
Assange's brother Gabriel Shipton (right) welcomed the motion put forward by lawmaker Andrew Wilkie
(left)Image: Mick Tsikas/AAP Image/AP/picture alliance
Assange's brother Gabriel Shipton welcomed the motion which came "at a crucial time," saying that the free speech activist could be extradited to the US as soon as next week.
"That means all the ties to his family, his lifeline that are keeping him alive inside that prison will be cut off and he'll be lost into a horrific prison system in the United States," Shipton said.
Assange's brother Gabriel Shipton welcomed the motion which came "at a crucial time," saying that the free speech activist could be extradited to the US as soon as next week.
"That means all the ties to his family, his lifeline that are keeping him alive inside that prison will be cut off and he'll be lost into a horrific prison system in the United States," Shipton said.
Why does the US want to extradite Julian Assange?
Assange is accused of publishing around 700,000 classified documents, starting in 2010, that shed a light on the US secrets about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Australian sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he stayed for seven years to avoid extradition to Sweden on charges of sexual assault which were later dropped.
He was eventually kicked out of the embassy and was arrested; he has been held in London's high-security Belmarsh Prison since 2019.
US prosecutors have said Assange helped US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal and leak the classified diplomatic and military documents.
Manning was sentenced to 35-years in prison, but her sentence was commuted to just seven by former President Barack Obama, allowing her to be released in 2017. She was however rearrested in 2019 and stayed behind bars for another year for her refusal to testify in a case involving Julian Assange.
ab/dj (AFP, AP)
Who is Julian Assange, the controversial founder of WikiLeaks?
Julian Assange, who is expected to return home to Australia a free man this week after years of fighting against extradition to the US on spying charges, is for some a fearless campaigner for press freedom. But for others, the 52-year-old Australian was reckless with classified information, possibly endangering human sources.
Issued on: 25/06/2024 -
Julian Assange, who is expected to return home to Australia a free man this week after years of fighting against extradition to the US on spying charges, is for some a fearless campaigner for press freedom. But for others, the 52-year-old Australian was reckless with classified information, possibly endangering human sources.
Issued on: 25/06/2024 -
Protesters hold placards in support of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange outside the High Court in London, Monday, May 20, 2024.
© Kin Cheun, AP
By FRANCE 24
Assange is the figurehead of the whistleblowing website that exposed government secrets worldwide, notably the explosive leak of US military files related to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He has spent more than a decade either in custody or holed up in Ecuador's London embassy, trying to avoid extradition – first to Sweden to answer allegations of rape, and then to the United States.
Assange is expected to plead guilty this week to violating US espionage law, after which he is due to be sentenced to 62 months of time served and return to Australia.
Born in Townsville, Queensland, in 1971, Assange had a peripatetic childhood and claims to have attended 37 schools before settling in Melbourne.
As a teenager, he discovered a talent for computer hacking, which brought him to the attention of the Australian police, but he admitted most of the charges levelled against him, for which he paid a fine.
Assange launched WikiLeaks in 2006 with like-minded activists and IT experts.
Assange is the figurehead of the whistleblowing website that exposed government secrets worldwide, notably the explosive leak of US military files related to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He has spent more than a decade either in custody or holed up in Ecuador's London embassy, trying to avoid extradition – first to Sweden to answer allegations of rape, and then to the United States.
Assange is expected to plead guilty this week to violating US espionage law, after which he is due to be sentenced to 62 months of time served and return to Australia.
Born in Townsville, Queensland, in 1971, Assange had a peripatetic childhood and claims to have attended 37 schools before settling in Melbourne.
As a teenager, he discovered a talent for computer hacking, which brought him to the attention of the Australian police, but he admitted most of the charges levelled against him, for which he paid a fine.
Assange launched WikiLeaks in 2006 with like-minded activists and IT experts.
"We are creating a new standard for a free press," Assange told AFP in August 2010.
Embassy asylum
His legal battles began the same year, soon after he published revelations from classified documents about US military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rape allegations in Sweden then followed, which he denied.
He was in Britain when Sweden sought his extradition. Ecuador granted him political asylum and let him into its London embassy.
Assange lived in a small apartment in the embassy for seven years from 2012, exercising on a treadmill and using a sun lamp to make up for the lack of natural light. He compared his predicament to living in a space station.
His lengthy stay in the mission ended, however, after a new government in Quito turned him over to British police in April 2019. He was arrested for jumping bail and jailed.
Stella Assange speaks to FRANCE 24's Benedicte Paviot
00:52
Swedish prosecutors dropped their rape investigation in 2019, saying that despite a "credible" account from the alleged victim there was insufficient evidence to proceed.
But US authorities charged him with violating the US Espionage Act.
He has since been held at Belmarsh high-security prison in London during a protracted legal battle to decide if he should be extradited.
Assange is scheduled to appear in court in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US possession in the Pacific, where he will plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defense information in exchange for his freedom, ending his years-long legal drama.
The announcement comes just two weeks before Assange had been scheduled to appear in court in Britain to appeal against a ruling approving his extradition to the United States.
But US authorities charged him with violating the US Espionage Act.
He has since been held at Belmarsh high-security prison in London during a protracted legal battle to decide if he should be extradited.
Assange is scheduled to appear in court in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US possession in the Pacific, where he will plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defense information in exchange for his freedom, ending his years-long legal drama.
The announcement comes just two weeks before Assange had been scheduled to appear in court in Britain to appeal against a ruling approving his extradition to the United States.
Russia claims
Assange's backers, including the Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei and the late fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, claimed the charges were politically motivated.
They have repeatedly raised concerns about the physical and mental toll of his prolonged incarceration.
Nils Melzer, UN special rapporteur on torture, said the "progressively severe suffering inflicted" on Assange through his detention was tantamount to torture.
Assange was initially supported by human rights groups and newspapers that worked with him to edit and publish the US war logs.
Evidence included a leaked video showing a US military Apache helicopter firing on and killing two journalists and several Iraqi civilians on a Baghdad street in 2007.
But many were horrified when WikiLeaks dumped unredacted documents online, including the names of informants. Assange fell out spectacularly with his media partners.
US lawyers have conceded that while they were "aware" of sources who disappeared after WikiLeaks published their names, they cannot prove that their disappearance was the result of being "outed by WikiLeaks".
Questions also mounted over Assange's relationship with Russia.
Special prosecutor Robert Mueller's probe into interference in the 2016 US presidential election won by Donald Trump found that Russians "appeared" to have hacked Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign, and then "publicly disseminated those materials through various intermediaries, including WikiLeaks".
Assange is the father of two boys with his wife Stella, whom he met when she worked on his case. They married in Belmarsh in March 2022.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
DW BACKGROUNDER
Matthias von Hein
DW
January 2, 2021
The court of public opinion remains undecided on Julian Assange. But the fate of the WikiLeaks founder is currently in the hands of a London judge who will decide whether to extradite him to the US
Julian Assange is regarded by many as a hero who uncovered war crimes and corruption, and as the father of modern investigative journalism, having dealt with huge amounts of leaked data. But others see him as a traitor, an enemy of the state, an accomplice to Russian President Vladimir Putin, perhaps the man responsible for Donald Trump's 2016 election as president of the United States — or all of the above.
Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a former WIkiLeaks spokesperson, once characterized the Australian editor and publisher as "brilliant, paranoid, and obsessed with power" and accused him of turning WikiLeaks into an "ego trip" that he had "tied too closely to himself and his belligerent personality."
German magazine Der Spiegel once quoted Assange as saying: "When you are much smarter than the people around you, you develop an enormous ego — and you get the feeling that any problem can be solved if you put your mind to it."
Assange's alleged paranoia, in turn, has proven justified. Since 2010 he has been on a "Manhunting Timeline" list of US intelligence agencies, the online publication Intercept reported, citing secret documents leaked by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. These mention extensive intelligence operations whose goal is to investigate, stop or at least damage WikiLeaks.
Rape accusation
Just when Assange was at the pinnacle of his fame, his reputation was massively damaged for the first time. In the summer of 2010, the release of the "Collateral Murder" video made WikiLeaks a household name around the world. With the "Afghan War Diary," Assange became a recognized figure in journalism.
Then, on August 21, 2010, the Swedish tabloid Expressen reported that Assange was the subject of rape allegations. This became the basis of an investigation that would go on for years — although no official charges were ever brought against him.
The accusation came from two women who walked into a Stockholm police station. Assange, who has a reputation for promiscuity, was to have had sex with both of them during a visit to Stockholm in August 2010. One woman said he tampered with a condom during sex, while the other accused him of having sex with her while she was asleep.
Assange said he was not concerned about any proceedings in Sweden, but believed the Swedish allegations were designed to discredit him and were a pretext for his extradition from Sweden to the United States.
Günter Wallraff, a renowned German investigative journalist, told DW the accusations were a "character assassination" against Assange.
The court of public opinion remains undecided on Julian Assange. But the fate of the WikiLeaks founder is currently in the hands of a London judge who will decide whether to extradite him to the US
Julian Assange is regarded by many as a hero who uncovered war crimes and corruption, and as the father of modern investigative journalism, having dealt with huge amounts of leaked data. But others see him as a traitor, an enemy of the state, an accomplice to Russian President Vladimir Putin, perhaps the man responsible for Donald Trump's 2016 election as president of the United States — or all of the above.
Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a former WIkiLeaks spokesperson, once characterized the Australian editor and publisher as "brilliant, paranoid, and obsessed with power" and accused him of turning WikiLeaks into an "ego trip" that he had "tied too closely to himself and his belligerent personality."
German magazine Der Spiegel once quoted Assange as saying: "When you are much smarter than the people around you, you develop an enormous ego — and you get the feeling that any problem can be solved if you put your mind to it."
Assange's alleged paranoia, in turn, has proven justified. Since 2010 he has been on a "Manhunting Timeline" list of US intelligence agencies, the online publication Intercept reported, citing secret documents leaked by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. These mention extensive intelligence operations whose goal is to investigate, stop or at least damage WikiLeaks.
Rape accusation
Just when Assange was at the pinnacle of his fame, his reputation was massively damaged for the first time. In the summer of 2010, the release of the "Collateral Murder" video made WikiLeaks a household name around the world. With the "Afghan War Diary," Assange became a recognized figure in journalism.
Then, on August 21, 2010, the Swedish tabloid Expressen reported that Assange was the subject of rape allegations. This became the basis of an investigation that would go on for years — although no official charges were ever brought against him.
The accusation came from two women who walked into a Stockholm police station. Assange, who has a reputation for promiscuity, was to have had sex with both of them during a visit to Stockholm in August 2010. One woman said he tampered with a condom during sex, while the other accused him of having sex with her while she was asleep.
Assange said he was not concerned about any proceedings in Sweden, but believed the Swedish allegations were designed to discredit him and were a pretext for his extradition from Sweden to the United States.
Günter Wallraff, a renowned German investigative journalist, told DW the accusations were a "character assassination" against Assange.
German investigative journalist Günter Wallraff has been campaigning to organize support for Assange
Image: Getty Images/A. Berry
"He has been accused of the worst thing you can accuse someone of in an enlightened society: rape," he said. The accusations against Assange were contrived to make the man who had uncovered so much a persona non grata, Wallraff believed, citing research by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer.
Melzer, a Swiss professor of international law, speaks fluent Swedish. As such, he has been able to inspect a wealth of original documents. In an interview with the Swiss publication Republik, Melzer raised accusations against the Swedish authorities in early 2020 for the first time, arguing that evidence had been manipulated for political reasons.
Spokesman for Putin?
Criticism of supposed links to Moscow first emerged in 2012. Assange continued his journalistic work, initially under house arrest and then as a political refugee in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London because of the Swedish extradition request that was later filed.
He produced a political talk show called "The World Tomorrow" with his own company, Quick Roll Productions. The client was Russia's state-owned foreign broadcaster Russia Today. The first interview guest was Hassan Nasrallah, head of the Shiite Hezbollah in Lebanon, via video link. It was the first international interview with the controversial Hezbollah leader in six years.
But was it a scoop? In Germany, there was a barrage of criticism. The main criticism leveled at Assange was that he was too uncritical of Nasrallah.
Assange was also criticized by The New York Times and The Guardian, whose former Moscow correspondent Luke Harding called him a "useful idiot" of the Russian propaganda machine. The BBC, in turn, focused on the mediation offers Nasrallah had made for the Syrian civil war.
"He has been accused of the worst thing you can accuse someone of in an enlightened society: rape," he said. The accusations against Assange were contrived to make the man who had uncovered so much a persona non grata, Wallraff believed, citing research by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer.
Melzer, a Swiss professor of international law, speaks fluent Swedish. As such, he has been able to inspect a wealth of original documents. In an interview with the Swiss publication Republik, Melzer raised accusations against the Swedish authorities in early 2020 for the first time, arguing that evidence had been manipulated for political reasons.
Spokesman for Putin?
Criticism of supposed links to Moscow first emerged in 2012. Assange continued his journalistic work, initially under house arrest and then as a political refugee in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London because of the Swedish extradition request that was later filed.
He produced a political talk show called "The World Tomorrow" with his own company, Quick Roll Productions. The client was Russia's state-owned foreign broadcaster Russia Today. The first interview guest was Hassan Nasrallah, head of the Shiite Hezbollah in Lebanon, via video link. It was the first international interview with the controversial Hezbollah leader in six years.
But was it a scoop? In Germany, there was a barrage of criticism. The main criticism leveled at Assange was that he was too uncritical of Nasrallah.
Assange was also criticized by The New York Times and The Guardian, whose former Moscow correspondent Luke Harding called him a "useful idiot" of the Russian propaganda machine. The BBC, in turn, focused on the mediation offers Nasrallah had made for the Syrian civil war.
In 2012, Assange sought political refugee at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London
Image: REUTERS
Assange produced 12 episodes of his talk show with such diverse interlocutors as Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek and leftist intellectual Noam Chomsky.
Assange produced 12 episodes of his talk show with such diverse interlocutors as Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek and leftist intellectual Noam Chomsky.
Trump's election aid?
In the middle of the 2016 US presidential campaign, WikiLeaks published tens of thousands of emails from Democrats, including their presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. These not only damaged Clinton's election campaign against Donald Trump, but also Assange's reputation, according to investigative reporter Wallraff.
In this case, public interest in the information was relevant, showing some of the irregular influence of the Democratic party leadership in favor of Clinton to the detriment of Bernie Sanders in the primaries.
Wallraff said accusations of Assange's closeness to Russia are undermined by WikiLeaks publications on Putin or human rights violations in Russia.
Andy Müller-Maguhn, former spokesman for the Chaos Computer Club, said he visited Assange almost every month during his time in the embassy in his capacity as chairman of the Wau Holland Foundation, which campaigns for freedom of information. Regarding Assange's stance on the US election campaign and specifically Clinton, Müller-Maguhn reports "extremely critical disputes about which comments are still in the spirit of journalism and freedom of information and when it starts to relate to personal disputes."
But Müller-Maguhn also told DW he can understand Assange's position. "Hillary Clinton has said publicly several times that he should be killed with a drone," he said. "She was secretary of state when he published the embassy dispatches in 2010, the Afghan and Iraqi war diaries. Whether this woman became president was a question of life and death for him. You can't blame him for what he did."
Clinton denied she ever made the comment about wanting to kill Assange with a drone, and media fact checkers have described the alleged remark as a rumor.
This article was originally written in German.
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