WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Freed from Prison
Assange to Plead Guilty to Espionage Law Violation
Assange to Travel Home to Australia After Guilty Plea
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been freed from prison in the United Kingdom and is expected to travel home to Australia after he agreed to plead guilty to violating US espionage law in a deal that will end his years-long legal battle.
Assange is scheduled to appear in a London court on Wednesday to enter his plea to a single felony count of illegally obtaining and disclosing classified information. The plea deal will allow him to serve his sentence in Australia, where he holds citizenship.
Assange has been held in a high-security prison in London since 2019, when he was arrested after spending seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced sexual assault charges. The charges were later dropped, but the US indicted him on espionage charges.
The plea deal is a major victory for Assange and his supporters, who have argued that he is a political prisoner and should not be extradited to the US. The US government has long accused Assange of aiding and abetting the enemy by publishing classified information, including diplomatic cables and military documents, that were leaked to WikiLeaks by Chelsea Manning, a former US Army intelligence analyst.
In a statement, Assange's wife, Stella Morris, said she was "overjoyed" that her husband was finally being freed. "This is a victory for Julian, for journalism, and for free speech," she said. "We have always said that Julian is innocent and should never have been charged. This plea deal is a vindication of that belief."
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