WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is expected to plead guilty tomorrow, Wednesday, to violating the US Espionage Act, in an agreement that will end his imprisonment in Britain and allow him to return to his home country of Australia, ending a 14-year legal saga.
Assange, 52, agreed to plead guilty to one criminal charge of conspiring to obtain and publish classified US national defense documents, according to files filed in the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.
He is scheduled to be sentenced to 62 months in prison, which he has already served, at a hearing on the island of Saipan at 9 a.m. local time tomorrow, Wednesday. The US Pacific island was chosen, according to prosecutors, because of its proximity to Australia and Assange's refusal to travel to the US mainland.
The WikiLeaks website stated in a statement published on the From across the political spectrum all the way to the United Nations,” he said, explaining that Assange would return to Australia after the hearing.
A video clip published by WikiLeaks on the
His wife, Stella Assange, wrote in a post on the
The Australian government, headed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, has been pressing for Assange's release, but has refrained from commenting on the legal proceedings while they continue, while many press freedom advocates say that filing a criminal charge against Assange represents a threat to freedom of expression.
In 2010, WikiLeaks published hundreds of thousands of secret American military documents about Washington's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, in the largest security breach of its kind in American military history, along with collections of diplomatic cables.
Assange was convicted during the administration of former US President Donald Trump regarding the publication of secret American documents by WikiLeaks, which were leaked by former US military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, and was also subject to trial under the Espionage Act.
Very odd!
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