“Julian Assange arrived on US territory on the island of Saipan to formalize the plea agreement that should never have taken place,” the WikiLeaks platform reported from his X account.
In the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific, the court hearing that should put an end to the case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange began this Wednesday. (Photo: Internet).
The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, arrived on June 26 in the Northern Mariana Islands, in the western Pacific Ocean, to formalize the plea agreement with the United States Department of Justice that led to his freedom.
Assange arrived in the US overseas territory, specifically the island of Saipan, the largest of the Marianas, “to formalize the plea agreement that should never have taken place,” WikiLeaks reported on the social network X.
The journalist will plead guilty to a felony under the United States Espionage Act of 1917 following a deal that will allow him to be released and return to his native Australia.
Assange, who spent the last five years of his life in a maximum security British prison, will thus end the legal soap opera to which he was subjected after carrying out the largest leak of classified documents in the history of the United States on his anti-secret site.
In 2010-2011, WikiLeaks exposed thousands of sensitive files on the Pentagon’s military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Assange, who would face a sentence of up to 175 years in prison under the century-old Law never applied to a journalist, will accept guilt and the agreement must be approved by a judge.
The renowned communicator, who will turn 53 on July 3, is expected to appear tomorrow before a federal court in remote Saipan to formalize the agreement with which he will plead guilty to conspiring to illegally obtain and disseminate classified information related to the defense national of the United States.
Such a crime would carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, but the probable sentence would be five, which would be considered settled taking into account the time Assange spent in the British prison.
The international community reacted with joy after learning the day before that the founder of WikiLeaks, who was also granted asylum from 2012 to 2019 in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, was released.
 – Escambray){kind=link}