Organizations representing freedom of speech have welcomed the release of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.
He has been released from prison in the United Kingdom and is heading back to Australia after agreeing to plead guilty to a charge related to the U.S. espionage law. The 52-year-old will admit to one count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified U.S. national defense documents, as indicated by a filing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.
Assange was released from Belmarsh high-security prison on Monday and subsequently flown out of the UK. He is scheduled to appear in a court in Saipan, a U.S. Pacific territory, at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, where he will be sentenced to 62 months of time already served. Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes reports that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be freed from prison in a plea deal with the United States Justice Department.
“Julian Assange is free,” WikiLeaks announced in a statement posted on X. “He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of June 24, after spending 1,901 days there. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and released at Stansted airport in the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and left the UK.”
A video shared by WikiLeaks on X shows Assange, dressed in a blue shirt and jeans, signing a document before boarding a private jet. Following the hearing in Saipan, Assange will return to Australia, according to the WikiLeaks statement.
“Julian is free!!!!” his wife Stella expressed on X. “Words cannot express our immense gratitude to YOU – yes, YOU, who have all mobilized for years and years to make this happen. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.”
Assange gained international attention in 2006 with the launch of WikiLeaks, an online platform for whistleblowers to anonymously submit classified materials such as documents and videos. The platform garnered significant attention following the release of footage showing a U.S. Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad that resulted in the deaths of a dozen people, including two journalists. WikiLeaks’ reputation was further solidified with the 2010 release of hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. documents related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as a large collection of diplomatic cables.
