WikiLeaks’ Assange pleads guilty in deal with US that secures his freedom, ends legal fight

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, left, is escorted as he arrives at the United States courthouse where he is expected enter a plea deal, in Saipan, Mariana Islands, Wednesday, June 26 2024. SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has pleaded guilty to obtaining and publishing U.S.

The conclusion enables both sides to claim a degree of satisfaction. The Justice Department, facing a defendant who had already served substantial jail time, was able to resolve — without trial — a case that raised thorny legal issues and that might never have reached a jury at all given the plodding pace of the extradition process.

Assange appeared upbeat and relaxed during the hearing, listening intently and at times cracking jokes with the judge. While signing his plea agreement, he made a joke about the 9-hour time difference between the U.K. and Saipan. At another point, when the judge asked him whether he was satisfied with the plea conditions, Assange responded: “It might depend on the outcome,” sparking some laughter in the courtroom.

The indictment was unsealed in 2019, but Assange’s legal woes long predated the criminal case and continued well past it. In 2019, his hosts revoked his asylum, allowing British police to arrest him. He remained locked up for the last five years while the Justice Department sought to extradite him, in a process that encountered skepticism from British judges who worried about how Assange would be treated by the American criminal justice system.

His wife, Stella Assange, told the BBC from Australia that it had been “touch and go” over 72 hours whether the deal would go ahead but she felt “elated” at the news. A lawyer who married the WikiLeaks founder in prison in 2022, she said details of the agreement would be made public once the judge had signed off on it.

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