WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange released from prison.
The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange has been released from prison in the United Kingdom and is returning to Australia after agreeing to plead guilty to a single allegation of violating US espionage laws.
Assange, 52, will plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to obtain and leak sensitive US national defense documents, according to a filing in the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands. He was released from the UK's high-security Belmarsh prison on Monday and brought to the airport, from which he flew out of the country.
Assange will appear in court on Saipan, a US Pacific territory, at 9 a.m. on Wednesday (23:00 GMT on Tuesday), where he will be sentenced to 62 months of the time already served.
"Julian Assange is free,” WikiLeaks said in a statement on X
“He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK. After more than five years in a 2x3 metre cell, isolated 23 hours a day, he will soon reunite with his wife Stella Assange, and their children."
The guilty plea, which must be approved by a judge, brings an abrupt end to a criminal case of international intrigue, as well as the US government's years-long pursuit of a publisher whose hugely popular secret-sharing website made him a celebrity among many press freedom advocates who claimed he acted as a journalist to expose US military wrongdoing.
Assange was charged with conspiracy to obtain and distribute national defense information after the Wikileaks website revealed secret US military data.
