Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors after years of fighting extradition from the United Kingdom to the U.S. The Justice Department anticipates his return to Australia following a plea hearing scheduled for Tuesday morning.
The agreement signifies the end of Assange’s prolonged standoff with the White House, which has triggered diplomatic tensions and raised concerns about U.S. commitment to press freedom.
In 2018, Assange was indicted by the Justice Department in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, on charges related to hacking and unauthorized access to classified information. Following almost seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, he was arrested in 2019 for extradition on these charges. Last month, a London court ruled that Assange could continue to appeal his extradition.
On Monday, federal prosecutors filed updated charges with the U.S. district court in the Northern Mariana Islands, along with a letter requesting a hearing on Tuesday. Prosecutors expect Assange to plead guilty, and the hearing has been set for 9 a.m. on Tuesday.
The updated charges allege that Assange conspired with Chelsea Manning to access and disseminate classified information without lawful access between 2009 and 2011. Former President Barack Obama commuted Manning’s sentence in January 2017.
President Joe Biden had indicated he was considering dropping the charges and extradition attempt against Assange, a move that press freedom organizations both in the U.S. and globally had urged him to do.
Pressure from Australia influenced the prosecution’s politics, with the Australian government opposing Assange’s extradition to the U.S. Australian lawmakers lobbied their American counterparts and urged U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy to intervene.
Press freedom advocates expressed mixed reactions to the end of the Assange saga, with concerns about the precedent it sets for journalistic freedom.
Assange’s wife, Stella, celebrated the news of the plea deal, announcing his freedom on social media. WikiLeaks also confirmed his release from Belmarsh maximum security prison.
WikiLeaks’ publication of over 250,000 unredacted State Department cables in 2010 remains a significant data breach in U.S. government history, providing valuable information for journalists, activists, and anti-corruption investigators worldwide.
