WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was set free after pleading guilty to violating US espionage laws by a court in the US Pacific Island territory of Saipan on Wednesday.
The verdict from the court will allow him to return to Australia. Assange agreed to conspire to get classified US national defense documents and reveal them. He maintained that whatever activity he did was protected by the First Amendment, under which free speech is protected.
“Working as a journalist I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified in order to publish that information,” Assange told the court, adding that he believes “the First Amendment protected that activity but I accept that it was … a violation of the espionage statute.”
Assange’s guilty plea
Assange’s guilty plea was accepted by the Chief US District Judge Ramona V. Manglona and granted his release because of the duration he had already spent in British prison.
Stella Assange, Julian’s wife reacted to the verdict by posting on social media platform X about the astounding media presence of his husband who underwent years of isolation in a British prison. “I watch this and think how overloaded his senses must be, walking through the press scrum after years of sensory depravation and the four walls of his high security Belmarsh prison cell,” Stella Assange tweeted.
The WikiLeaks founder who is 52 years old, is scheduled to leave Saipan by midday on a private jet. As per flight records, Australia’s ambassadors to the US and UK will accompany him. They are anticipated to reach Canberra before 7:00 PM as per local time.
Even though the reporters were not allowed in the courtroom to record the session, it was covered by the media from around the world.
Australian-born Assange faced 18 criminal charges related to his work with WikiLeaks. He served seven years in the Ecuadorean embassy in London and more than five years in a high-security prison of British.
(With inputs from Reuters)