WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange walked free from a court in the US Pacific island territory of Saipan, after pleading guilty to violating US espionage law, in a deal that will see him return home to Australia, bringing to an end an extraordinary legal saga.
During the three hour hearing, Assange pleaded guilty to one criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents, but said he had believed the US first amendment, which protects free speech, shielded his activities.
“Working as a journalist I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified in order to publish that information,” he told the court. “I believed the first amendment protected that activity but I accept that it was … a violation of the espionage statute.”
The plea was entered on Wednesday morning in federal court in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a US commonwealth in the Pacific. Assange chose the island because of its proximity to Australia.
Assange, who had flown to Saipan from London, arrived at court accompanied by Australian ambassador to the US, Kevin Ruddand Australian high commissioner to the UK Stephen Smith. He was greeted by a hoard of foreign and local media.
The hearing is the culmination of the US government’s years-long pursuit of the publisher, who has been painted both as a hero of press freedom and a reckless criminal for exposing hundreds of thousands of sensitive military documents.
Inside the wood-panelled courthouse, at the foot of a lush hillside on Saipan’s coast, US government attorney Matthew McKenzie read out extensive details of the type of classified documents obtained by Assange’s source, Chelsea Manning, and published by WikiLeaks. McKenzie, deputy chief of the DOJ counterintelligence department, said Assange’s opinions of the first amendment and espionage act did not align with the facts.
“We reject those sentiments but accept that he believes them,” McKenzie said.
Chief US district judge Ramona V. Manglona accepted Assange’s guilty plea and released him without supervision due to time already served in Belmont prison in London.
Closing the hearing, she said “With this pronouncement it appears you will be able to walk out of this courtroom a free man. I hope there will be some peace restored.” Assange, appearing emotional, hugged his legal team.
Speaking outside the court house, Assange’s lawyer Jennifer Robinson thanked Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese for his work on helping to free Assange.
Assange is set to leave Saipan shortly after noon local time, according to flight logs. They will then travel to Canberra where he will be reunited with his family, WikiLeaks said.
The justice department agreed to hold the hearing on the remote island due to Assange’s opposition to travelling to the US mainland and because of its proximity to Australia.
The deal – disclosed on Monday in court papers – represents the final chapter in a more than decade-long legal fight over the fate of Assange, which saw him heralded by many around the world as a hero who brought to light US military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan, while others – including multiple US governments – said his release of secret documents put lives in danger.
Before being locked up in London, Assange spent years hiding out in the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault, which he has denied and which were later dropped by Swedish authorities.
The abrupt conclusion enables both sides to claim a degree of success, with the justice department able to resolve without trial a case that raised thorny legal issues and that might never have reached a jury at all given the plodding pace of the extradition process.
His wife, Stella Assange, told the BBC from Australia that it had been “touch and go” over 72 hours whether the deal would go ahead but she felt “elated” at the news. A lawyer who married the WikiLeaks founder in prison in 2022, she said details of the agreement would be made public once the judge had signed off on it.
“He will be a free man once it is signed off by a judge,” she said, adding that she still didn’t think it was real.
Assange on Monday left Belmarsh prison, where he has spent the last five years, after being granted bail during a secret hearing last week. He boarded a plane that landed hours later in Bangkok to refuel before taking off again toward Saipan. A video posted by WikiLeaks on X, showed Assange staring intently out the window at the blue sky as the plane headed toward the island.
“Imagine. From over 5 years in a small cell in a maximum security prison. Nearly 14 years detained in the UK. To this,” WikiLeaks wrote. The top Australian diplomat in the United Kingdom accompanied Assange on the flight.
With Associated Press and Reuters
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