WikiLeaks' Assange arrives in Australia after release following US plea deal | WikiLeaks News

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has arrived in Australia after being freed by a US court in Saipan in a plea deal.

Assange's plane landed in Canberra on Wednesday, hours after the 52-year-old pleaded guilty in a Saipan court to a charge of espionage, linked to obtaining and publishing military secrets Americans.

In the U.S. Pacific Territory courtroom, District Judge Ramona Manglona sentenced Assange to five years and two months, the time he spent in prison in the United Kingdom fighting extradition to the United States. United, and declared he was free to leave.

With this statement, it appears you will be able to walk out of this courtroom a free man, the judge said Wednesday.

JULIAN ASSANGE IS FREE!!

Watch here: https://t.co/7PlI9fnSMG#AssangeFreed #JournalismIsNotACrime pic.twitter.com/Kpbh63CCCB

Free Assange #FreeAssange (@FreeAssangeNews) June 26, 2024

I can't stop crying, his wife, Stella, wrote on the social media platform X.

The Australian had earlier taken a private flight to Saipan from the United Kingdom. He attended court accompanied by members of his legal team and Australia's ambassador to the United States, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

He answered the judge's basic questions and listened to discussions about the terms of the agreement.

Addressing the court, Assange said he believed the espionage law under which he was charged contradicted the First Amendment rights of the US Constitution, but that he accepted that encouraging sources to provide classified information for publication may be illegal.

As a condition of his plea, he will be asked to destroy information provided to WikiLeaks.

Saipan was chosen to appear in court because of Assange's opposition to traveling to the U.S. mainland as well as its proximity to his home in Australia, prosecutors said.

Julian leaves Saipan federal court a free man. I can't stop crying.#AssangeFree #AssangeJet pic.twitter.com/Uee3uKceg0

Stella Assange #FreeAssangeNOW (@Stella_Assange) June 26, 2024

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the hearing was a welcome development.

Australia has used all appropriate channels to support a positive outcome in this matter, he said.

Whatever your opinion of Mr. Assange, his case has dragged on for too long. There is nothing to be gained from his continued incarceration and we want him brought back to Australia, Albanese told reporters in Canberra.

Following the judge's ruling, a representative for Assange said the WikiLeaks founder would not make a statement or answer questions.

His lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, said it was a historic day and thanked Albanese for helping to make Assange's release possible.

Fidel Narvaez, a former Ecuadorian diplomat who granted Assange political asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012, told Al Jazeera he felt overwhelmed with joy at Assange's release.

I am happy, of course, Narvaez said, adding that Assange has been persecuted by the most powerful country in the world for 14 years, while simultaneously being abandoned by his own country.

Narvaez pointed out that Assange likely would not have accepted a guilty plea deal if it had been offered to him years ago, noting that it set a precedent that will discourage others from repeating his actions in the future .

Who would want to repeat what Julian Assange and WikiLeaks did if they knew what awaited them if they published the truth? It's not a perfect picture, but Julian is free and I think the world is a much better place today than it was yesterday, Narvaez said.

Barry Pollack, another lawyer for Assange, said his client had been the victim of an injustice.

The prosecution of Julian Assange is unprecedented, he told reporters outside court.

In the 100 years of the Espionage Act's existence, the United States has never used that law to prosecute a publisher, a journalist, like Mr. Assange. Mr. Assange revealed truthful, important and newsworthy information, including that the United States had committed war crimes and that he had suffered enormously.

Assange's release and return to Australia appears to mark the final chapter in a 14-year battle.

Assange spent more than five years in a high-security prison in the UK, and before that seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, while fighting sex crime charges in Sweden, which were later abandoned, and was fighting extradition to the United States, where he faced 18 criminal charges.

Assange's supporters see him as a victim because he exposed US military crimes in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Washington has said the release of secret documents puts lives at risk.

Sources 1/ https://Google.com/ 2/ https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/25/wikileaks-julian-assange-lands-in-saipan-for-us-plea-deal-court-hearing The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article

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