Julian Assange He pleaded guilty in a US court in Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands, as part of an agreement that should free him after years of legal drama.
The 52-year-old Australian pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information. Wikileaks announced that Asange, founder of that organization, will travel to Canberra in the next few hours. It was a predictable statement, a logical step in his agreement to get out of prison.
Assange had been released on Monday, upon leaving the Belmarsh maximum security prison, near London, where he had been detained for five years. That day he left the United Kingdom, Wikileaks reported after the announcement of a plea agreement with US justice.
The creator of Wikileaks was tried by US authorities for having revealed hundreds of thousands of confidential documents.
Assange could be sentenced to 62 months in prison, but having served a similar period of preventive detention in London, it is expected that he will be able to return free to his native Australia.
Since 2019, when he was detained in a high-security prison in London, Assange has been fighting to avoid being handed over to American justice, which accuses him of publishing more than 700,000 confidential documents on military and diplomatic activities, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Australian faced, in theory, a sentence of up to 175 years in prison under the Espionage Act. In fact, the British government approved his extradition in June 2022. However, two British judges granted him the right to appeal the decision.
The WikiLeaks founder was arrested by British police in April 2019 after spending seven years confined to the Ecuadorian embassy in London. In recent years, requests have increased for US President Joe Biden to drop the charges against him. Australia submitted a formal request in February, which the Democratic president said he was considering.
