WikiLeaks announced the release of Julian Assange from a British prison
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been released from prison in the UK. The organization reported this on social networks.
He left the country by plane. Assange is now on his way home to Australia.
WikiLeaks noted that the journalist left Belmarsh maximum security prison after spending 1,901 days within its walls. “After more than five years spent in a two-by-three-meter cell in isolation 23 hours a day, he (Julian Assange – Lenta.ru note) will soon be reunited with his wife Stella Assange and children who saw their father only for bars,” the message says.
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A few hours before his release, it became known that the founder of WikiLeaks was preparing for a deal with the US prosecutor’s office, in which he could partially admit guilt. It is likely that Assange’s agreement to this condition allowed him to be released. “We expect the defendant to plead guilty to conspiracy to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified information relating to the national defense of the United States,” states the document signed by US Attorney Sean Anderson.
Biden ends prosecution of Assange
US President Joe Biden said in April that Washington was considering the possibility of closing the Assange case. The Australian Parliament made a corresponding request to the United States.
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At the same time, the founder of WikiLeaks received permission from London to appeal the decision to extradite him to the United States. Two judges at London’s High Court said they allowed Julian Assange to appeal the decision because he said he could be discriminated against as a foreign national.
The journalist’s lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, also reminded the judges that they should not believe assurances from the United States that Assange can rely on the First Amendment to the US Constitution to guarantee freedom of speech. He noted that the words of US prosecutors are “clearly insufficient guarantee.”
Assange exposed US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan
The case against Assange was initiated after documents on US actions during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were published on the WikiLeaks website in 2010. The publication of these documents became the largest leak of classified military documents in history. That same year, rape charges were brought against him in Sweden. Since 2012, Assange, fearing extradition, took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in the UK. In 2019, he was deprived of political asylum, and since then he has been in London’s Belmarsh prison.
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In October 2016, shortly before the US presidential election, WikiLeaks published correspondence from John Podesta, the chairman of the election campaign of US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The letters addressed issues of nuclear energy, as well as donations to the Clinton Foundation from mining. The US Department of Justice brought 17 charges against Assange in May 2019, later adding one more. If extradited to the United States, the WikiLeaks founder faced up to 175 years in prison.
Earlier, Assange’s wife Stella Morris said that her husband’s health was gradually deteriorating. She noted that Assange had a “minor stroke in October 2021.”
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