WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange pled guilty to a single espionage charge in front on a US judge Wednesday and walked free after his 12-year battle against extradition to the United States ended in a plea deal.
The controversial figure was released from a British prison on Monday and flew by charter jet to a remote US territory in the Pacific where he officially entered his guilty plea and was sentenced to time already served. He then flew onward to Australia, arriving in his home nation as a free man on Wednesday night.
The 52-year-old has spent the past five years in the high-security prison in southeast London and nearly seven years before that holed up at the Ecuadorian embassy in the British capital, trying to avoid arrest that could have led to life imprisonment.
On Monday, Assange agreed to plead guilty to a felony charge related to his alleged role in one of the largest US government breaches of classified materials after his whistleblowing website published nearly half a million secret military documents relating to the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The plea deal caps a years-long legal saga that has spanned multiple continents.
Here’s what we know:
Where is Assange?
Assange boarded a flight from London’s Stansted airport on Monday after being released on bail from prison, according to a statement from WikiLeaks on Tuesday.
“Julian Assange is free,” WikiLeaks said. “He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1,901 days there.”
Traveling with Australia’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom Stephen Smith, Assange flew to Saipan, the largest island and capital of the remote Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific.
Under the terms of the agreement, US Justice Department prosecutors sought a 62-month sentence – which is equal to the amount of time Assange served in the United Kingdom while he fought extradition.
The plea deal credited that time served, allowing Assange to immediately return to Australia.
With Assange resistant to setting foot in the continental US to enter his guilty plea, a judge conducted the hearing and sentencing together on Wednesday in Saipan, where a US federal district court is located.
“It appears that your 62 months imprisonment is fair and reasonable,” Judge Ramona Manglona said in her sentencing. “You will be able to walk out of this courtroom a free man.”
The Pacific island chain is a US territory some 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles) west of Hawaii and closer to Australia, where Assange is a citizen and traveled onto next.
What did Assange do?
Assange was wanted by US authorities on espionage charges connected to Wikileaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of sensitive military and government documents supplied by former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in 2010 and 2011.
The US accused Assange of endangering the lives of confidential sources by releasing the unfiltered cables and had for years been seeking his extradition.
He faced 18 charges for his alleged role in the breach and faced a maximum of up to 175 years in prison. British authorities had sought reassurances from the US that he would not receive the death penalty.
From Townsville, eastern Queensland, Assange started WikiLeaks in 2006 as an online repository that would publish anonymously submitted material, including the US military’s operating manual for its detention camp in Guantanamo Bay and internal documents from the Church of Scientology.
In 2010, WikiLeaks was catapulted to global attention when it released video that claimed to show a deadly 2007 US helicopter attack in Iraq.
Soon after, WikiLeaks released thousands of classified US military documents relating to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a trove of diplomatic cables.
Assange described the documents previously to CNN as “compelling evidence of war crimes” committed by US-led coalition and Iraqi government forces.
Fight against extradition
Assange had long argued the case against him was politically motivated, that he would not face a fair trial, and his handover would violate the European Convention on Human Rights.
Free speech advocates condemned the extradition attempt, saying it would have a chilling effect on press freedom.
In August 2010, Assange was accused of sexual assault in Sweden and faced an international arrest warrant. He denied the allegations as “a smear campaign” and refused to go to Stockholm for questioning.
He turned himself in to British authorities but while out on bail in 2012 as he appealed extradition to Sweden, Assange fled to the Ecuadorian Embassy requesting political asylum.
During his time in the embassy, WikiLeaks kept up its data dumps, including in 2016 when it released thousands of emails apparently hacked from the Democratic National Committee and emails stolen from the private email account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, on the eve of the US election.
But over time, his relationship with his host soured and Ecuador’s president came under pressure from the US to expel him from the diplomatic bolthole.
In 2019, Assange was pulled from the embassy by London’s Metroplitan Police on an extradition warrant from the US Justice Department, and spent the next five years living mostly isolated, in a 3-by-2-meter cell at Belmarsh prison.
The prison has capacity for more than 900 inmates and is known for once housing infamous terror suspects such as the radical Egyptian cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri within its high-security unit.
Support for Assange’s release
There has recently been increased pressure for Assange’s case to be resolved.
In May, London’s High Court ruled that Assange had the right to appeal in his final challenge against extradition to the US, and US President Joe Biden had alluded to a possible deal pushed by Australian government officials in April.
ASSANGE: KEY MOMENTS
- 2006: Julian Assange founds whistleblowing website, WikiLeaks.
- Apr 2010: WikiLeaks posts video showing a US helicopter killing civilians in Iraq in 2007.
- Jul 2010: WikiLeaks posts classified documents related to the Afghanistan war.
- Aug 2010: Sweden launches probe of Assange after claims of sexual assault emerge, which he denies.
- Jun 2012: Assange enters Ecuadorian embassy in London seeking political asylum.
- Apr 2019: British police arrest Assange on behalf of the US, requests his extradition after Ecuador withdraws his asylum.
- Jun 2022: UK home secretary signs his extradition order, which he later appeals.
- May 2024: Assange wins permission to bring new extradition appeal.
- Jun 2024: Assange strikes US plea deal allowing him to leave UK prison and return to Australia.
The UN special rapporteur on torture and Amnesty International were among those who called on the United Kingdom to halt the possible extradition, citing concerns over the risk of abuse and other ill-treatment if Assange was sent to the US.
Upon his release Monday, Assange’s wife, Stella Assange, posted on social media, “Julian is free!”
“Words cannot express our immense gratitude to YOU- yes YOU, who have all mobilised for years and years to make this come true,” she wrote.
Assange’s mother, Christine Assange, said she is “grateful that my son’s ordeal is finally coming to an end,” in a statement obtained by CNN on Tuesday.
Speaking in parliament Wednesday, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he was “pleased that (Assange) was on his way home to Australia to reunite with his family.”
“This outcome has been the product of careful, patient and determined work,” Albanese said, adding “this is what standing up for Australians around the world looks like.”
Former Ecuadorian president Lenín Moreno told CNN he is glad the WikiLeaks founder won’t be handed over to the US. Moreno withdrew Assange’s asylum in April 2019, which had allowed him to stay at the South American country’s embassy in London.
Among those celebrating Assange’s release were the presidents of Colombia and Mexico. “Assange’s eternal imprisonment and torture was an attack on press freedom on a global scale,” said Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
Meanwhile, Alan Rusbridger, editor of the UK political monthly Prospect Magazine who previously collaborated with Assange, said in a post on X that it was “good news that Assange is apparently free.”
He continued, “Enough was enough. But his treatment was a warning to journalists and whistleblowers to keep quiet in future. And I suspect it will have worked.”
This story has been updated with additional developments.
CNN’s Lucas Lilieholm, Manveena Suri, Claudia Rebaza, Katelyn Polantz, Holmes Lybrand, Evan Perez, Devan Cole, Mauricio Torres and Stefano Pozzebon contributed reporting.