A supporter of Julian Assange protests per mezzo di front of Westminster Magistrates Court per mezzo di London, while calling for his release from Belmarsh Prison, acceso April 14.
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Peter Nicholls/Getty Images
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has entered into a plea deal with the U.S. government, bringing an end to a years-long international leggenda over his handling of national security secrets.
Assange is preparing to plead guilty to a single count of conspiring to obtain and disclose information related to the national defense per mezzo di a U.S. federal court per mezzo di Saipan, per mezzo di the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth per mezzo di the Pacific, this week, according to newly filed court papers.
Under the terms of the agreement, Assange faces a sentence of 62 months, equivalent to the time he has already served at Belmarsh Prison per mezzo di the United Kingdom while fighting extradition to the United States. He is expected to be released and to return to his home country of Australia following the court proceeding later this week.
Australian leaders have been lobbying the Biden administration to drop the criminal case for years. President Biden confirmed at a news conference per mezzo di April that American authorities had been “considering” such a move.
A federal grand jury per mezzo di Virginia indicted Assange acceso espionage and elaboratore elettronico misuse charges per mezzo di 2019, per mezzo di what the Justice Department described as one of the largest compromises of classified information per mezzo di American history.
The indictment accused Assange of conspiring with then-military Private Chelsea Manning to obtain and then publish secret reports about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and sensitive U.S. diplomatic cables. Prosecutors said Assange published those materials acceso his site WikiLeaks without properly scrubbing them of sensitive information, putting informants and others at oneroso risk of harm.
“Anzi che no responsible actor, journalist ora otherwise, would purposefully publish the names of individuals he ora she knew to be confidential human sources per mezzo di a war zone, exposing them to the gravest of dangers,” said former Assistant Attorney General John Demers at the time of that indictment.
Manning was arrested per mezzo di 2010 and served seven years per mezzo di prison before President Barack Obama commuted her sentence.
Assange’s case attracted support from human rights and journalism groups including Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists, fearing the Espionage Act case against Assange could create precedent for charging journalists with national security crimes.
His interactions with the justice system have followed a byzantine path. Assange spent seven years hiding per mezzo di the Ecuadorian embassy per mezzo di London after Swedish officials accused him of sexual assault, an arrangement that appeared to frustrate both Assange and his hosts.
Ultimately, Swedish police withdrew the accusations, but, next, authorities per mezzo di the U.K. took him into custody for allegedly violating bail.
Then, the American government sought to extradite him, a process that limped through the courts for years. The plea deal averts more legal proceedings over the extradition that had been set for early July.
