Wednesday, June 26, 2024

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Julian Assange Is Released from Prison: What Does it Mean?


Ten Important Takeaways from Empire's Persecution of Assange

Lifesize bronze sculpture featuring (L-R) former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and former US soldier Chelsea Manning convicted of violations of the Espionage Act, on May 1, 2015 at Alexanderplatz square in Berlin. (AFP Photo / Tobias Schwarz) © AFP

The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, will at long last taste freedom again. He should never have been imprisoned. Nevertheless, the release is conditional on his accepting to plead guilty to espionage in the United States — in the far-flung US territory of Saipan. There he is to be sentenced to 62 months of time already served. However, it is much longer that 62 months. Since Sweden ordered an arrest of Assange over rape allegations in 2010, Assange has found himself under some form of incarceration until his current release.

There are some important takeaways from this gross dereliction of justice.

One: The rape allegations, that continue to appear in lazy media, were false, and this was attested to by the two women in the case. The allegations were a political construction between Sweden acting on behalf of the US. The United Kingdom abetted the US’s scheming against Assange. No western nations stepped forward to criticize the treatment. Graciously, president  Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador offered asylum for Assange in Mexico.

Why was Assange being targetted? Because WikiLeaks has released scads of classified US military documents on the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,  diplomatic cables, and the devastating video Collateral Murder. When US citizen Daniel Ellsberg released the “Pentagon Papers” for publication, he was charged with theft on top of espionage, but government chicanery caused it to end up in a mistrial. Whereas president Richard Nixon failed miserably against Ellsberg, Donald Trump and Joe Biden persevered and kept Assange under some form of lock-and-key.

Two: Assange is not guilty. He is guilty of journalism, which is not a crime. He did not commit treason against the US. He is an Australian citizen and not a US citizen. He did not commit espionage. Assange is not a spy and neither was he a thief. He is a publisher, and when WikiLeaks published the leaks, Assange was doing what the New York Times did when they published the “Pentagon Papers.”

Nonetheless, Assange is human. He has parents, a wife, and kids. Assange realizes that he was up against the state machinery of the US, UK, Sweden, and the collusion of Ecuador under president Lenin Moreno. Crucial was the unwillingness of pre-Albanese Australian administrations to fight for one of its citizens.

If the Deep State in the US can have its own president assassinated without consequences, then it can easily have a single person put in some form of incarceration for as long as it intends.

After years and years of incarceration — especially in the notorious Belmarsh prison, his health diminishing, missing his family — that Assange would have accepted the release terms of a rogue empire is completely understandable.

Three: Justice is all too often not just. Justice delayed is justice denied goes the legal maxim. Unfortunately, Assange is not an isolated example. Edward Snowden cannot return stateside. Seeing what has happened to Assange reinforces that the US government will mete out injustice to him.

Four: Monopoly media continues to evince that it is an organ of government and corporations. Why so? First, because they are instruments of power. Second, they found themselves all too often scooped by WikiLeaks on major stories.

Five: The bad: this is a blow to freedom of speech and the right of the public to know what their government is doing.

Six: More bad: it is too easy to demonize a hero, to torture a hero, and to do this even though there is a significant (although arguably not numerous enough) global movement in support of a hero.

Seven: Even more bad: people must keep in mind the other heroes out there who brought corruption, war crimes, crimes against peace and humanity to the public consciousness and as a consequence face persecution, imprisonment, assassination, and whatever sordid punishments the machinery of rogue states can cook up. People like Daniel Ellsberg, William Binney, Ray McGovern, Scott Ritter, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, George Galloway, conscientious objectors, truth tellers, resistance fighters, among others.

Eight: Assange is a hero. Heroes tend to be too loosely defined. Scoring a boatload of goals does not one a hero make, neither does crooning a hit song make one a hero, nor does attaining ultra wealth. Heroes are embued with a highly developed sense of morality and transcend themselves by working for the greater good of humanity and the world.

Nine: It is a Pyrrhic victory for Empire. Yes, Assange was brought to the point of having to confess guilt, but who knows what Assange and WikiLeaks will do for exposing crimes of state from here on.

Ten: Whatever Assange decides to do in the future, his decision is earned. He has already done so much for the people who want transparency and who want their governments held to account.Facebook

Kim Petersen is an independent writer. He can be emailed at: kimohp at gmail.com. Read other articles by Kim.


The Release of Julian Assange: Plea Deals and Dark Legacies


One of the longest sagas of political persecution is coming to its terminus.  That is, if you believe in final chapters.  Nothing about the fate of Julian Assange seems determinative.  His accusers and inquisitors will draw some delight at the plea deal reached between the WikiLeaks founder’s legal team and the US Department of Justice.  Others, such as former US Vice President, Mike Pence, thought it unjustifiably lenient.

Alleged to have committed 18 offences, 17 novelly linked to the odious Espionage Act, the June 2020 superseding indictment against Assange was a frontal assault on the freedoms of publishing and discussing classified government information.  At this writing, Assange has arrived in Saipan, located in the US commonwealth territory of Northern Mariana Islands in the Western Pacific, to face a fresh indictment.  It was one of Assange’s conditions that he would not present himself in any court in the United States proper, where, with understandable suspicion, he might legally vanish.

As correspondence between the US Department of Justice and US District Court Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona reveals, the “proximity of this federal US District Court to the defendant’s country of citizenship, Australia, to which we expect he will return at the conclusion of proceedings” was also a factor.

Before the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, he will plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information under the Espionage Act of 1917, or section 793(g) (Title 18, USC).  The felony carries a fine up to $10,000 and/or up to 10 years in prison, though Assange’s time in Belmarsh Prison, spent on remand for some 62 months, will meet the bar.

The felony charge sheet alleges that Assange knowingly and unlawfully conspired with US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, then based at Operating Base Hammer in Iraq, to receive and obtain documents, writings and notes, including those of a secret nature, relating to national defence, wilfully communicated those documents from persons with lawful possession of or access to them to those not entitled to receive them, and do the same from persons unauthorised to possess such documents.

Before turning to the grave implications of this single count and the plea deal, supporters of Assange, including his immediate family, associates and those who had worked with him and drunk from the same well of publishing, had every reason to feel a surreal sense of intoxication.  WikiLeaks announced Assange’s departure from London’s Belmarsh Prison on the morning of June 24 after a 1,901 day stint, his grant of bail by the High Court in London, and his release at Stansted Airport.  Wife Stella regularly updated followers about the course of flight VJ199.  In coverage posted of his arrival at the federal court house in Saipan, she pondered “how overloaded his senses must be, walking through the press scrum after years of sensory depravation and the four walls” of his Belmarsh cell.

As for the plea deal itself, it is hard to fault it from the emotional and personal perspective of Assange and his family.  He was ailing and being subjected to a slow execution by judicial process.  It was also the one hook upon which the DOJ, and the Biden administration, might move on.  This being an election year in the US, the last thing President Biden wanted was a haunting reminder of this nasty saga of political persecution hovering over freedom land’s virtues.

There was another, rather more sordid angle, and one that the DOJ had to have kept in mind in thinning the charge sheet: a proper Assange trial would have seen the murderous fantasies of the CIA regarding the publisher subject to scrutiny.  These included various possible measures: abduction, rendition, even assassination, points thoroughly explored in a Yahoo News contribution in September 2021.

One of the authors of the piece, Zach Dorfman, posted a salient reminder as news of the plea deal filtered through that many officials during the Trump administration, even harsh critics of Assange, “thought [CIA Director Mike] Pompeo’s extraordinary rendition plots foolhardy in the extreme, and probably illegal.  They also – critically – thought it might harm Assange’s prosecution.”  Were Pompeo’s stratagems to come to light, “it would make the discovery process nightmarish for the prosecution, should Assange ever see trial.”

From the perspective of publishers, journalists and scribblers keen to keep the powerful accountable, the plea must be seen as enormously troubling. It ultimately goes to the brutal exercise of US extraterritorial power against any publisher, irrespective of outlet and irrespective of nationality.  While the legal freight and prosecutorial heaviness of the charges was reduced dramatically (62 months seems sweetly less imposing than 175 years), the measure extracts a pound of flesh from the fourth estate.  It signals that the United States can and will seek out those who obtain and publish national security information that they would rather keep under wraps under spurious notions of “harm”.

Assange’s conviction also shores up the crude narrative adopted from the moment WikiLeaks began publishing US national security and diplomatic files: such activities could not be seen as journalistic, despite their role in informing press commentary or exposing the venal side of power through leaks.

From the lead prosecuting attorney Gordon Kromberg to such British judges as Vanessa Baraitser; from the national security commentariat lodged in the media stable to any number of politicians, including the late California Democrat Dianne Feinstein to the current President Joe Biden, Assange was not of the fourth estate and deserved his mobbing.  He gave the game away.  He pilfered and stole the secrets of empire.

To that end, the plea deal makes a mockery of arguments and effusive declarations that the arrangement is somehow a victory for press freedom.  It suggests the opposite: that anyone publishing US national security information by a leaker or whistleblower is imperilled.  While the point was never tested in court, non-US publishers may be unable to avail themselves of the free speech protections of the First Amendment.  The Espionage Act, for the first time in history, has been given a global, tentacular reach, made a weapon against publishers outside the United States, paving the way for future prosecutions.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.comRead other articles by Binoy.



Julian Assange walks free, wife Stella appeals for donations for return flight             Julian Assange was freed after pleading guilty to violating US espionage laws, ending a 14-year legal battle. His wife, Stella, is crowdfunding to cover the USD 520,000 debt for his charter flight home to Australia.



Julian Assange/Stella Assange (Credits: Reuters)

India Today World Desk

New Delhi,

UPDATED: Jun 26, 2024 
Written By: Vani Mehrotra

In Short

Julian Assange pleads guilty to violating US espionage law

Deal allows him to head straight home to Australia

Wife Stella appeals for donations for USD 520,000 debt


Hours before WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange walked free on Wednesday, his wife, Stella Assange, on Tuesday said the cost of her husband's return flight was half a million dollars.

Appealing for donations to cover the USD 520,000 debt for Julian's jet, Stella, in a fundraising campaign on X said, "Julian's travel to freedom comes at a massive cost: Julian will owe USD 520,000 which he is obligated to pay back to the Australian government for charter Flight VJ199."

"He was not permitted to fly commercial airlines or routes to Saipan and onward to Australia. Any contribution big or small is much appreciated," she said.

Stella Assange's post on X

The crowdfunding for Julian had collected 56 per cent of the donation, amounting to £296,341, at the time of writing this report.

The project will receive the last donation on July 23, 2024.
JULIAN ASSANGE WALKS FREE

Julian Assange walked free on Wednesday from a court on the US Pacific island territory of Saipan after pleading guilty to violating US espionage law in a deal that allowed him to head straight home to Australia.

His release ends a 14-year legal saga in which Assange spent more than five years in a British high-security jail and seven years in asylum at the Ecuadorean embassy in London battling extradition to the US, where he faced 18 criminal charges.

During the three-hour hearing, Assange pleaded guilty to one criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified national defence documents but said he had believed the US Constitution's First Amendment, which protects free speech, shielded his activities.

Chief US District Judge Ramona V Manglona accepted his guilty plea and released him due to time already served in a British jail.

'It's a win for Assange, a win for humanity, but a loss for investigative journalism' 


Father, awaiting Julian Assange's arrival in Australia, says he never gave up

John Shipton, father of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, speaks during an interview in Canberra , Australia June 26, 2024.
PHOTO: Reuters


PUBLISHED ON JUNE 26, 2024 

CANBERRA — Julian Assange's father, John Shipton, could breathe a massive sigh of relief on Wednesday (June 26) after a decade-long campaign to free his son.

The WikiLeaks founder on Wednesday was released by a court on the US Pacific island territory of Saipan after pleading guilty to violating US espionage law.

Assange's family, including his father, children and wife, Stella, gathered in Australia's capital Canberra ahead of his expected evening arrival by private jet, marking the end of a long legal fight tied to WikiLeaks' release of hundreds of thousands of classified US defence documents in 2010.

Shipton said he planned to ask his son in a low-key Australian way when he arrives: "Where have you been?"

"My faith has never, ever, ever died," he told Reuters in an interview at parliament.

"That Julian can come home to Australia and see his family regularly and do the ordinary things of life is a treasure. Life measured amongst the beauty of the ordinary is the essence of life," Shipton said.

He said he was "divided in two" on the deal that saw Assange plead guilty to one charge of espionage, saying his release meant he would have precious time with his sons.

He was nonetheless concerned about the "political and legal circumstances surrounding it".

"I think it is going to be a problem for journalists and publishers anywhere in the world to publish criticism of the United States government," he said.

Assange's release was cause for celebration in Canberra, where politicians who had campaigned for Assange gathered around Shipton in a hall outside the parliament chamber.

"We want to give you a hug," said lawmaker Sophie Scamps.

Assange will need time to recover from his "monastic life" in self-exile in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for seven years, and then prison for five years, Shipton said.

He looked forward to being involved in his son's "practical everyday human life, not the sweep of politics."

"The American secret service in 2011 published their review saying we must hound him and his family to the end of the earth and bankrupt them. Its been expensive but I've got no complaints - the results are there for everyone to see," he said.

He said the Australian government had been "nothing short of magnificent".

Assange has previously said he got his "rebel gene" from his father. Shipton said he considers his son to be personally conservative and polite.

"It is his understanding of the capacity of the internet to bring to us information that can be the foundation of knowledge that is revolutionary," he said.

"He is only 52 I imagine he will find something to do. He will be 53 next week. The momentum he has got ... he will conjure forth those things that he can do."

Shipton said the family had devoted the last decade to doing everything in its capacity to see Assange free.

"We Australians managed to turn around a superpower in its attempt to destroy an Australian citizen," he said.

Shipton learnt of the plea deal from his son Gabriel.

Gabriel told Reuters on Wednesday he was "feeling extremely relieved that this ordeal is finally over and that Julian can move on with his life."

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange walks free from court after pleading guilty in US deal

Assange appears before a judge in Saipan in the Pacific as long-running legal case ends


WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaves a US courthouse in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands. Photograph: Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

Wed Jun 26 2024 - 

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has walked free from a US court after pleading guilty to one charge in a deal that resolves a long-running legal case over the publication of classified documents.

Assange appeared before a judge in Saipan in the US territory of the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific just after midnight on Wednesday and pleaded guilty to a single felony charge after the United States dropped 17 other espionage charges against him.

He admitted to his role in the conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act and was sentenced to time already served in a British prison.

Assange did not answer questions from reporters on the short walk into and out of the court.

The court hearing followed his dramatic release from Belmarsh Prison in London on Monday where he has spent five years, largely in solitary confinement, fighting extradition.

Assange left the UK on Monday evening and flew to Saipan via Bangkok after the plea deal was signed on June 19th.

Speaking outside court after the hearing, his US lawyer Barry Pollack said his prosecution was “unprecedented” and the WikiLeaks founder “suffered tremendously in his fight for free speech”.

Mr Pollack said: “The prosecution of Julian Assange is unprecedented in the 100 years of the Espionage Act, it has never been used by the United States to pursue a publisher, a journalist, like Mr Assange.

“Mr Assange revealed truthful, important and newsworthy information, including revealing that the United States had committed war crimes, and he has suffered tremendously in his fight for free speech, for freedom of the press, and to ensure that the American public and the world community gets truthful and important, newsworthy information.”

He added that they “firmly believe that Mr Assange never should have been charged under the Espionage Act”.

He said: “There was a very narrow agreed upon set of facts here and Mr Assange acknowledges that of course, he accepted documents from Chelsea Manning, and published many of those documents because it was in the world’s interest that those documents be published.

“Unfortunately, that violates the terms of the Espionage Act. That’s what we acknowledged today. We also said Mr Assange said very clearly that he believes there should be First Amendment protection for that conduct. But the fact of the matter is, as written, the Espionage Act does not have a defence for the First Amendment.”


Mr Pollack added that the court “determined that no harm was caused by Mr Assange’s publications”.

Jennifer Robinson, another of Assange’s lawyers, said the case set “a dangerous precedent” which should be a “concern” to journalists and people around the world.

“The US is seeking to exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction over all of you without giving you constitutional free speech protections, and anyone who cares about free speech and democratic accountability should stand against it,” she said.

After the hearing Assange boarded a flight to his native Australia to be reunited with his wife, two young sons and other members of the family.

The plea deal brings to an end a criminal case of international intrigue and to the US government’s pursuit of a publisher whose secret-sharing website made him a cause celebre among many press freedom advocates who said he acted as a journalist to expose US military wrongdoing

.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaves the US courthouse in Saipan. Photograph: YUICHI YAMAZAKI/AFP via Getty Images

US prosecutors had repeatedly asserted that his actions broke the law and put the country’s national security at risk.


The leaks detailed thousands of civilian deaths as a result of the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts, and implicated American armed forces in the killing of innocent bystanders, including a father and two Reuters journalists during an air strike on Baghdad in July 2007.

Assange will pay half a million US dollars (€466,750) for the chartered flight on which left Stansted, accompanied by a WikiLeaks lawyer, a representative of the Australian government and a medic to check on his health.

WikiLeaks has launched a fundraising campaign to pay for the flight

Assange’s wife Stella said on Tuesday her relief at his release was coupled with anger that he had spent so long in prison.

Speaking from Australia, she said: “It is hard to believe that Julian has been in prison for so long. It had become normalised. I am grateful to the people who made this possible but I am also angry that it ever came to this.

“Overall I am elated but I cannot believe it is actually happening until I see Julian.”

She told the PA news agency that she travelled to Australia with the couple’s two young sons Gabriel and Max on Sunday when it became clear that Assange would be freed.

WikiLeaks has released footage of founder Julian Assange boarding a plane ahead of an expected court hearing in the Northern Mariana Islands. Video: Reuters

Mrs Assange said her husband’s release would not have happened without the intervention of Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese, who has been increasingly vocal in demands for the United States to drop charges against Assange.

“The public climate has shifted and everyone understands that Julian has been the victim,” she said.

Assange had been locked in a lengthy legal battle in the UK over his extradition, which saw him enter and live in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London in 2012 before his detention in Belmarsh Prison.

In a January 2021 ruling, then-district judge Vanessa Baraitser said Assange should not be sent to the United States, citing a real and “oppressive” risk of suicide, while ruling against him on all other issues.

Later that year, US authorities won a High Court bid to overturn this block, paving the way towards Assange’s extradition.

Assange was due to bring his own challenge to the High Court in London in early July after he was recently given the go-ahead to challenge the original judge’s dismissal of parts of his case.

His release from prison comes days ahead of his 53rd birthday on July 3rd.

 – PA




WikiLeaks’ Assange pleads guilty to publishing US military secrets in deal that secures his freedom

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AP) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange pleaded guilty to obtaining and publishing U.S.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaves the federal court in Saipan, Mariana Islands, Wednesday, June 26 2024. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AP) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange pleaded guilty to obtaining and publishing U.S. military secrets Wednesday in a deal with Justice Department prosecutors that secures his liberty and concludes a drawn-out legal saga that raised divisive questions about press freedom and national security.

The criminal case of international intrigue, which had played out for years in major world stages of Washington and London, came to a surprise end in a most unusual setting with Assange, 52, entering his plea in a U.S. district court in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands. The American commonwealth in the Pacific is relatively close to Assange's native Australia and accommodated his desire to avoid entering the continental United States.

The deal required the iconoclastic internet publisher to admit guilt to a single felony count but also permitted him to return to Australia without any time in an American prison. The judge sentenced him to the five years he'd already spent behind bars in the United Kingdom, fighting extradition to the United States on an Espionage Act indictment that could have carried a lengthy prison sentence in the event of a conviction. He was holed up for seven years before that in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

He smiled slightly as U.S. District Judge Ramona Manglona imposed the sentence, pronouncing him a “free man."

The conclusion enables both sides to claim a degree of satisfaction. The Justice Department, facing a defendant who had already served substantial jail time, was 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. Assange, for his part, signaled a begrudging contentment with the resolution, saying in court that though he believed the Espionage Act contradicted the First Amendment, he accepted the consequences of soliciting classified information from sources for publication.

Jennifer Robinson, one of Assange’s lawyers, told reporters after the hearing that the case “sets a dangerous precedent that should be a concern to journalists everywhere.”

“It’s a huge relief to Julian Assange, to his family, to his friends, to his supporters and to us — to everyone who believes in free speech around the world — that he can now return home to Australia and be reunited with his family,” she said.

Assange arrived at court in a dark suit, with a tie loosened around the collar, after flying from Britain on a charter plane accompanied by members of his legal team and Australian officials, including the top Australian diplomat in the U.K.

Inside the courthouse, he answered basic questions from Manglona, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, and appeared to listen intently as terms of the deal were discussed.

He appeared upbeat and relaxed during the hearing, at times cracking jokes with the judge. While signing his plea agreement, he made a joke about the 9-hour time difference between the U.K. and Saipan. At another point, when the judge asked him whether he was satisfied with the plea conditions, Assange responded: “It might depend on the outcome,” sparking some laughter in the courtroom.

“So far, so good,” the judge responded.

The plea deal, disclosed Monday night in a sparsely detailed Justice Department letter, represents the latest — and presumably final — chapter in a court fight involving the eccentric Australian computer expert who has been celebrated by supporters as a transparency crusader but lambasted by national security hawks who insist that his conduct put lives at risks and strayed far beyond the bounds of traditional journalism duties.

The criminal case brought by the Trump administration Justice Department centers on the receipt and publication of hundreds of thousands of war logs and diplomatic cables that included details of U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Prosecutors alleged that he teamed with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to obtain the records, including by conspiring to crack a Defense Department computer password, and published them without regard to American national security. Names of human sources who provided information to U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan were among the details exposed, prosecutors have said.

But his 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 and warned of a chilling effect on journalists. 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.

The indictment was unsealed in 2019, but Assange’s legal woes long predated the criminal case and continued well past it.

Weeks after the release of the largest document cache in 2010, a Swedish prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for Assange based on one woman’s allegation of rape and another’s allegation of molestation. Assange has long maintained his innocence, and the investigation was later dropped.

He presented himself in 2012 to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he claimed asylum on the grounds of political persecution, and spent the following seven years in self-exile there, welcoming a parade of celebrity visitors and making periodic appearances from the building’s balcony to address supporters.

In 2019, his hosts revoked his asylum, allowing British police to arrest him. He remained locked up for the last five years while the Justice Department sought to extradite him, in a process that encountered skepticism from British judges who worried about how Assange would be treated by the U.S.

Ultimately, though, the resolution sparing Assange prison time in the U.S. contradicts years of ominous warnings by Assange and his supporters that the American criminal justice system would expose him to unduly harsh treatment, including potentially the death penalty — something prosecutors never sought.

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.

After the morning court hearing, Assange left Saipan by plane around midday headed for Australia, where relatives were waiting to be reunited with him.

Assange on Monday had left the London prison where he has spent the last five years after being granted bail during a secret hearing last week. The plane carrying him and Australian officials landed for refueling in Bangkok en route to Saipan. A video posted by WikiLeaks on the X platform 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.

___

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.

Mari Yamaguchi, Kimberly Esmores, Alanna Durkin Richer And Eric Tucker, The Associated Press



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