WikiLeaks’ Assange pleads guilty in US deal to walk free

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange pleaded guilty in a US court in Saipan on June 26, AFP reporters said, in a plea bargain that will leave him a free man after years of legal drama.

The 52-year-old admitted to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defence information in the courtroom in the Northern Mariana Islands, a Pacific US territory.

“Guilty to the information,” Assange said, later joking to the judge during the proceedings that whether he is satisfied “depends on the outcome of the hearing”.

He will fly to the Australian capital Canberra within hours following a plea deal to set him free, the whistleblower website said on June 26.

“Expected to depart in 2 hours, 58 minutes. To Canberra, Australia,” WikiLeaks said in a social media post, as Assange faced court in Saipan.

Assange had arrived at the court house in a white SUV. He was wearing a black suit and smiled as he walked past security with his team and Australia’s ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd.

Dozens of media from around the world gathered outside the courtroom to cover the proceedings. Media is not allowed inside the courtroom to cover the hearing.

“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,” Ms Stella Assange, the wife of WikiLeaks founder said on social media platform X.

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Assange agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents, according to filings in the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.

The US territory in the western Pacific was chosen due to Assange’s opposition to travelling to the mainland US and for its proximity to Australia, prosecutors said.

“Julian Assange has arrived on U.S. territory at Saipan Island to formalise the plea deal that should never have had to happen,” Wikileaks said on X.

Assange is due to be sentenced to 62 months of time already served at a hearing in Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, at 9am local time (7am Singapore time)

Australian-born Assange spent more than five years in a British high-security jail and seven holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London as he fought accusations of sex crimes in Sweden and battled extradition to the US, where he faced 18 criminal charges.

Assange’s supporters view him as a victim because he exposed US wrongdoing and potential crimes, including in conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Washington has said the release of the secret documents put lives in danger.

Australian governments have been advocating for his release and has raised the issue with the United States several times.

“For any Australian to be in a position of being in protracted incarceration without legal resolution is a situation where the government should be advocating on their behalf and we have been doing that,” Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles told ABC television on June 26

Mr Marles added that Assange’s release would not sour relations between Australia and close ally United States. REUTERS, AFP