After accepting a plea agreement with an American court, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange landed in Canberra, Australia as a free man.
Assange stepped off a private jet onto his native land to be greeted by his family on the tarmac. Mr. Assange’s first phone call after greeting his family was with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Reports say Assange told PM Albanese this was a “surreal and happy moment.”
Assange pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to obtain and disclose national defense information.
Before the agreement, Mr. Assange was wanted in the US on 18 charges, including 17 under the Espionage Act and one under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Pleading guilty to the one count was part of the plea agreement with the Northern Mariana Island court, a territory of the US Commonwealth.
The agreement ends a 14-year legal battle since the publishing of US intelligence documents to Mr. Assange’s website ‘Wikileaks’.
Assange argued that these documents were of public interest and protected by first amendment rights. The US government disagreed and has been trying to extradite Mr. Assange ever since.
Assange had many battles during his 14-year legal saga including fighting an extradition to Sweden over allegations of rape, spending seven years inside of the Ecuadorian embassy in London as a political refugee, and five years inside a British high security prison.
Mr. Assange’s case in Sweden over a rape allegation was eventually dropped.
Julian Assange’s Wikileaks published thousands of classified documents ranging from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the Clinton campaign in 2016, documents from the film industry, and issues regarding national security.
Most notably, and what lead to Mr. Assange’s charges from the United States, were the Chelsea Manning leaks.
Chelsea Manning was a former US Army intelligence analyst who provided Wikileaks with classified documents revealing how the US military had killed thousands of civilians in unreported incidents.
Documents revealed that 66,000 civilians had been killed, which was considerably more than what had previously been reported.
Also included in the Manning leaks were more than 250,000 messages sent by US diplomats.
The US government describes the leaks as a grave and imminent risk, going as far as endangering the lives of US Military personnel.
Jennifer Robinson, one of Mr. Assange’s lawyers, said that the plea deal was a “huge win for free speech” and that Assange would be seeking a pardon from President Biden.
