US authorities have agreed to drop their demand for Julian Assange to be extradited from the UK after reaching a plea deal with the WikiLeaks founder.
In return for pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information, Assange will be sentenced to time served, 62 months – the time he has already spent in a British prison.
Once the guilty plea is accepted by a judge, the 52-year-old will be free to return to Australia, the country of his birth.
American prosecutors had alleged that Assange put lives at risk when he helped former US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks put online in 2010.
He then spent years hiding out in the Ecuadorian embassy before his arrest in May 2019.
He has since been held at Belmarsh maximum security prison in south London.
In a post on X, WikiLeaks said Assange left Belmarsh on Monday morning after being granted bail by the High Court. By the afternoon he was at Stansted Airport where he boarded a plane and left the UK.
“After more than five years in a 2×3 metre cell, isolated 23 hours a day, he will soon reunite with his wife Stella Assange, and their children, who have only known their father from behind bars,” the company said.
His plea and sentencing is scheduled for Wednesday morning, local time in Saipan, the largest island in the Mariana Islands.
The hearing is taking place there because of Assange’s opposition to travelling to one of the 50 US states and the court’s proximity to Australia.
Assange has been fighting extradition to the US for 13 years.
Back in May, two High Court judges ruled that he would be allowed to appeal against being extradited and that he could rely on the First Amendment right to free speech if he faced a trial for spying.
Source Agencies
