WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange agreed on Monday to plead guilty to one felony count of unlawfully obtaining and disclosing national security materials in exchange for his release from a British prison, bringing to an end a long and bitter standoff with the United States.
In a brief court document made public late Monday, Assange, 52, was granted a request to appear before a federal judge in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, one of the federal court’s most remote locations. He is expected to receive a sentence of about five years, equivalent to the time he has already served in Britain, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the terms of the agreement.
It was a fitting final development in the case against Assange, who has staunchly opposed extradition to the U.S. The islands are a U.S. territory in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and are much closer to his native Australia, where he is a citizen, than the U.S. mainland or Hawaiian courts.
Shortly after the deal was revealed, WikiLeaks said: Assange has left LondonAssange is scheduled to appear in Saipan at 9 a.m. local time on Wednesday and plans to return to Australia “following the conclusion of the hearing,” Matthew J. MacKenzie, an official in the Justice Department’s counterterrorism division, said in a letter to the judge in the case.
Early Tuesday morning, his wife, Stella Assange I posted a video She was photographed on Monday as her husband signed the paperwork and boarded the flight.
Barring any last-minute snags, the agreement would bring to an end a long-running battle that began after Assange was met with both praise and condemnation for revealing state secrets in the 2010s.
These included documents about U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as secret cables shared among diplomats. During the 2016 election, WikiLeaks released thousands of emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee, leading to revelations that embarrassed the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
In 2019, a federal grand jury indicted Assange on 18 charges related to WikiLeaks’ dissemination of a wide range of national security documents, including a trove of material sent to WikiLeaks nearly a decade ago by Chelsea Manning, a former U.S. Army intelligence analyst who provided information on military plans and operations.
If convicted, Assange could face up to 170 years in federal prison. Until Monday night, he was being held at Belmarsh prison in southeast London, one of the UK’s highest security prisons.
Assange was reportedly held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, ate his meals alone from a tray surrounded by 232 books, and was only allowed to exercise for one hour a day in the prison yard. Featured in The Nation magazine this year.
Asked about his pale complexion, Assange, who has not been able to walk outside unsupervised for more than a decade, joked: “They say I have the paleness of prison.”
His release was not unexpected. Earlier this year, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese suggested U.S. prosecutors needed to close the case, and President Biden has signaled an openness to a swift resolution. Justice Department officials accepted the agreement not to add time to Assange’s sentence because he had already served longer than most people charged with similar crimes, in this case more than five years in prison in Britain.
Shortly after the allegations were made public in 2019, Metropolitan police raided the Ecuadorian embassy where Assange had taken refuge several years earlier to avoid extradition to Sweden to face sexual assault charges. He has been held in custody ever since, and his legal team has been fighting attempts by the Department of Justice to have him extradited.
After weeks of negotiations, Assange pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to disseminate defense information, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.
Assange and his supporters have long argued that his efforts to obtain and publish classified national security information are in the public interest and deserve the same First Amendment protections given to investigative journalists.
Many of Assange’s supporters expressed relief that he would be released, but also renewed their concerns.
“For the first time in the more than 100-year history of the Espionage Act, the United States has an Espionage Act conviction for a fundamental journalistic act,” said David Green, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that works on First Amendment issues.
“These charges should never have been brought,” he said.
In 2021, a coalition of civil and human rights groups called the case a “serious threat” to press freedom and called on the Biden administration to halt efforts to extradite and prosecute him from the UK.
The group argued that much of the conduct he is accused of is “what journalists do every day.” “News organizations frequently and necessarily publish classified information to inform the public about matters of significant social significance.”
But US authorities argued that Assange’s actions went far beyond newsgathering and endangered national security. Prosecutors argued that the material provided by Manning endangered the lives of soldiers and Iraqis working with the military, and made it harder for the country to counter external threats.
Mr Assange has repeatedly challenged the order to leave and remains in Belmarsh. Last month he won his appeal against the extradition order.
Assange, who later joined Assange’s legal team as he fought his extradition to Sweden and later married him, told supporters outside the central London court that the case should be dropped.
“The Biden administration should distance itself from this shameful prosecution,” said Mr. Assange, with whom he began a secret relationship while living in the Ecuadorian embassy. The couple have two young sons.
Assange has made few public appearances as his trial has dragged on, citing health problems. He suffered a mild stroke while in prison in 2021. He did not attend his May hearing for health reasons.
In another video posted to social media early Tuesday, Assange said: Recorded outside Belmarsh Prison last weekHe said things were moving very quickly.
“I believe this period of our lives is over,” she said, adding, “A new chapter begins now, with Julian’s freedom.”