Julian Assange, who could be released today if a US court upholds his plea agreement with US authorities, has become a symbol of freedom of information for his supporters.
After twelve years locked up, first seven as a refugee in the Ecuadorian embassy and then five in a maximum security prison near London, the founder of WikiLeaks sees the end of the nightmare close.
To leave that bad dream behind, A judge in the Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific, must ratify the plea agreement reached by the 52-year-old Australian with the American authorities.
Stella Assange, the wife of the WikiLeaks founder, who is already waiting for him in Australia, told the BBC on Tuesday that the agreement meant that her husband would plead guilty to one charge.
“The charge refers to acts of espionage and the obtaining and dissemination of information regarding national defense,” the wife said.
The announcement of his probable release comes when the British justice system had to examine in July a last appeal against his extradition to the United States.
Assange’s family and friends They repeatedly stated that the Australian is in poor health, after twelve years locked up, while his defense insisted in the different judgments about a risk of suicide.
Accusations in Sweden
This whole nightmare began for Assange when he created a non-profit media outlet called WikiLeaks in 2006, whichIt published, according to the site itself, more than 10 million classified documents, provided by anonymous sources.
The United States suddenly found itself a medium that revealed secret documents leaked from the Pentagon about its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, in addition to confidential correspondence from the government and its embassies around the world.
Assange has been hailed by many around the world as a hero who revealed military crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Among the files published by WikiLeaks was a video of an Apache helicopter attack carried out in 2007 by the US forces in Baghdad, in which 11 people were killed, including two Reuters journalists.
“WikiLeaks published untold stories of government corruption and human rights abuses, holding the powerful to account for their actions. As editor-in-chief, Julian paid heavily for these principles and for people’s right to know,” WikiLeaks said regarding the agreement that will allow him to regain his freedom. .
The agreement guarantees that Assange will admit his guilt, while freeing him from any additional prison sentence. He spent years hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London after Swedish authorities requested his arrest over rape allegations before being locked up in the UK.
In 2010, when WikiLeaks reached its peak of popularity with those leaks, Sweden demanded the arrest of Assange for raping a woman during a visit to Stockholm to give a conference, a charge that would be abandoned over time.
Assange denied the veracity of the accusation, although in May 2012 a London court agreed to his extradition to Sweden.
Shortly after, in June 2012, to avoid his extradition, Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he stayed for seven years during the government of Rafael Correa. With the arrival of Lenín Moreno to power in Ecuador, the country stopped granting asylum to the Australian, and Assange was arrested in April 2019 by the British police and imprisoned.
“A new chapter”
His wife Stella revealed in 2020 that she had two children with Assange while he lived in the Ecuadorian embassy and she was part of the legal team working for him.
“The priority now is for Julián to recover his health,” his wife told the BBC on Tuesday.
“He has been in terrible condition for five years and wants to be in contact with nature. That’s what we both want now, to have time and privacy, and just start this new chapter,” said the 40-year-old lawyer, born in South Africa.
The founder of WikiLeaks was born in Townsville, in northeastern Australia, without meeting his father, John Shipton, until he was 25, as his mother separated from him before Julian’s birth.
His mother had a new relationship, for eight years, with Brett Assange, from whom the WikiLeaks founder inherited his last name.
In that early part of his childhood, JJulian Assange led a wandering life, as his mother and stepfather founded a theater company and lived traveling.
After a new separation, his mother married and had another child with a musician, Leif Meynell, a member of a sect, in which Assange lived.
But Meynell mistreated Assange and his mother, so they ended up fleeing.
Attracted self-taught computer science, between 2003 and 2006 he studied Physics and Mathematics, as well as Philosophy, at the University of Melbourne, without finishing any degree.
That would not prevent him from creating a website, WikiLeaks, which became a symbol of freedom of information.
