Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, left for the Northern Mariana Islands on Tuesday, June 25, to finalise a plea agreement with federal prosecutors in the United States that will liberate him in exchange for a guilty plea.
According to a letter filed in court, the U.S. Justice Department said that Assange has reached a plea agreement to admit guilt to a Espionage Act charge of conspiring to obtain and disclose confidential national defence material unlawfully in a federal court in the U.S. Commonwealth in the Western Pacific. This would free him and put an end to a protracted judicial battle that took place over several continents and involved the release of a large number of classified documents.
Assange left a high-security London prison where he was in custody since 2019, after spending seven years in self-exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
Take a look at the timeline of Julian Assange’s legal saga
2006 – Julian Assange founded his company, WikiLeaks, that was into publishing sensitive or classified documents.
2010 – The company WikiLeaks in a series of posts leaked about half a million documents. The documents were related to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Further in August 2010, an arrest warrant from a Swedish prosecutor was issued for Assange based on allegations from two women. One accused him of rape while other for molestation. However, the warrant was withdrawn shortly as prosecutors failed to cite sufficient evidence against rape allegation. In September, the rape investigation was reopened by Sweden’s director of prosecution. Following this, Assange left Sweden for Britain.
An international arrest warrant against Assange was issued by Sweden police in November and in December, Assange surrendered himself to police in London and was detained pending an extradition hearing. Assange was granted bail by the High Court.
2011 – A district court in Britain ordered in February to be extradited to Sweden.
2012 – After his attempts to challenge the extradition decision were unsuccessful, Assange entered the Ecuadorian Embassy in central London and applied for asylum in June. Police set up an around-the-clock guard to arrest him if he steps outside. Following this, Assange was granted political asylum by Ecuador in August.
2014 – Assange lost his bid to have an arrest warrant issued in Sweden against him cancelled. A judge in Stockholm upholds the warrant alleging sexual offences against two women.
2015 – Swedish prosecutors asked to question Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in March. While in August Swedish prosecutors dropped investigations into some allegations against Assange because of the statute of limitations; however an investigation into a rape allegation remained active.
Metropolitan Police ended their 24-hour guard outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in October but said that they will arrest Assange if he leaves, ending a three-year police operation estimated to have cost millions.
2016 – The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that Assange has been wrongfully jailed and suggested to release him right away along with compensation. Assange called this “total vindication.” Britain called the findings “frankly ridiculous”.
2018 – The president of Ecuador in September said that his country and Britain are working on a legal solution to allow Assange to leave the embassy. In October, Assange sought a court injunction pressing Ecuador to provide him basic rights, he said the country agreed to when it first granted him asylum.
A U.S. court filing that appears to inadvertently revealed in November that the existence of a sealed criminal case against Assange was discovered by a researcher and no details were confirmed.
2019 – Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno in April blamed the company WikiLeaks for recent corruption allegations even Ecuador’s government revoked Assange’s asylum status. London police hauled Assange out of the Ecuadorian Embassy and arrested him for breaching bail conditions in 2012, as well as on behalf of U.S. authorities. In May, Assange was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for jumping bail in 2012.
The U.S. government indicted Assange on 18 charges over WikiLeaks’ publication of classified documents. Prosecutors said he conspired with the U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning hacked into a Pentagon computer and released secret diplomatic cables and military files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In November that year, rape investigation was dropped by Swedish prosecutor.
2020 – During May an extradition hearing for Assange was delayed during the COVID-19 pandemic. However in June the U.S. filed a new indictment against Assange that prosecutors said underscored Assange’s efforts to procure and release classified information.
2021 – A British judge decided that Assange cannot be extradited to the United States because he is likely to commit suicide under harsh conditions of the U.S. prision. In July, the High Court granted the U.S. government permission to appeal the lower court’s ruling blocking Assange’s extradition while in December the High Court ruled that U.S. assurances about Assange’s detention were enough to guarantee he would be treated humanely.
2022 – Britain’s Supreme Court in March refused to grant Assange permission to appeal against his extradition. Following this, in June, Britain’s government ordered the extradition of Assange to the United States.
2023 – Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in May said that Assange should be released and “nothing is served” by his ongoing incarceration. An appeal against Assange’s extradition was rejected by a High Court judge in June.
2024 – Assange’s lawyers launched a final legal bid to stop his extradition at the High Court in February. In March, two High Court judges in London gave U.S. authorities three more weeks to submit further assurances, including a guarantee that Assange won’t get the death penalty, before deciding whether they will grant him a new appeal against his extradition.
The two High Court judges ruled in May that Assange can mount a new appeal based on arguments about whether he will receive free-speech protections or be at a disadvantage because he is not a U.S. citizen.
On June 24, 2024, the U.S. Justice Department said in a letter filed in court that, under a deal with the agency, Assange will be allowed to walk free in return for pleading guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defence information.
(with inputs from AP)