WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has arrived in Australia after a US court released him on Saipan under a plea deal.
Assange’s plane landed in Canberra on Wednesday, hours after the 52-year-old WikiLeaks founder pleaded guilty in court on Saipan to espionage charges related to obtaining and publishing US military secrets.
Julian Assange is charged with espionage over the publication of US service documents about incidents involving the US military during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is also accused of making public the diplomatic cables of John Podesta – chairman of the election campaign of the US presidential candidate from the Democratic Party Hillary Clinton. On these charges Assange faced up to 175 years in prison, he did not admit guilt earlier.
In a courtroom in the US Pacific territory, US District Judge Ramona Manglona sentenced Assange to five years and two months – time he spent in prison in the UK fighting extradition to the US – and said he was free to go. The judge said on Wednesday:
“With this sentence, it looks like you will be able to walk out of the courtroom a free man.”
His wife Stella wrote on social media X:
“I can’t stop crying.”
Prosecutors said Saipan was chosen for the trial because Assange did not want to travel to the US mainland and because of its proximity to his home in Australia.
Details of Assange’s plea deal
This deal allows both sides some satisfaction. The Justice Department, faced with a defendant who had already served a significant prison sentence, was able to settle out of court a case that raised thorny legal issues and might not have reached a jury trial at all, given the slowness of the extradition process. Assange, for his part, expressed reluctant satisfaction with the decision, telling the court that while he believed the Espionage Act violated the First Amendment, he accepted the consequences of obtaining classified information from sources for publication.
He was ordered to order WikiLeaks to destroy the information as a condition of a plea deal in order to be released, The Guardian reports.
Assange must also testify under oath about the clearing of information. “US lawyers are satisfied that he has done so,” emphasised the publication’s journalist Helen Davidson in the courtroom.
