WASHINGTON/SYDNEY, June 24 (Reuters) - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is due to plead guilty on Wednesday to violating U.S. 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.
Assange, 52, has agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified U.S. national defense documents, according to filings in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.
He is due to be sentenced to 62 months of time already served at a hearing in Saipan at 9 a.m. local time on Wednesday (2300 GMT Tuesday). The island in the Pacific was chosen due to Assange’s opposition to travelling to the mainland U.S. and for its proximity to Australia, prosecutors said.
Assange left Belmarsh prison in the UK on Monday before being bailed by the UK High Court and boarding a flight that afternoon, Wikileaks said in a statement posted on social media platform X.
“This is the result of a global campaign that spanned grass-roots organisers, press freedom campaigners, legislators and leaders from across the political spectrum, all the way to the United Nations,” the statement said.
A video posted on X by Wikileaks showed Assange dressed in a blue shirt and jeans signing a document before boarding a private jet with the markings of charter firm VistaJet.
He will return to Australia after the hearing, the Wikileaks statement added, referring to the hearing in Saipan.
I feel better about Assange being released, I may not like that he was showing the World our dirty laundry; to tell the truth, I’m glad it got out there.
Manning however is a different story, he didn’t want to be in the Military, he certainly didn’t want to be deployed and this was his way of getting back at the Military. F’ Him !
Actually he was charged with crimes. He was never arraigned or tried but charges were filed. He literally just plea bargained and plead guilty. Just sayin.
You are still free to believe it was a “witch hunt” or whatever you like.
A friend in Oz tells me that a lot of folks down there are of the mind that they are glad to see him home. They are glad this ordeal is over. And, they really hope he will just STFU now.
In the role of a journalist I believe someone has a certain amount of leeway when it comes to publishing sensitive information that one comes to be in possession of. I may not like it. I might wish they would show a certain amount of discretion and care to ensure that the lives of operatives and assets are protected. I may not particularly like that Assange published what he did, but I’m not sure how hot I would be about punishing him simply for publishing what fell into his hands.
But that is not what happened. Assange colluded with Manning before the fact. He offered to, and may actually have assisted in the stealing of that information. He offered advice. He provided guidance on what kind of information would be most valuable to him/WikiLeaks. The full depth of his involvement is not clear. In my mind he is a criminal conspirator.
Assange did not simply “cross the line” as a journalist, he blitzkrieged across that line like an armored column on the advance.
Don’t disagree, decent summation. However, that homo freak Manning aside, Assange and also Snowden revealed what the US gubment is up to. While a majority of what they leaked we would not agree with from a national defense POV, the domestic tidbits they did divulge confirm what many of us have suspected for some time. Kind of a love/hate for both of them.
Same here. If the US government weren’t doing such evil and unconstitutional shit, there wouldn’t have been anything worth publishing. Sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette. We haven’t broken enough yet.