June 25th 2024.
After more than five years behind bars, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has finally walked free from prison in the UK. This comes as part of a plea deal he reached with the US Justice Department. As he boarded a private plane at London's Stansted Airport, his travel arrangements were kept secret, but it's believed that he will be heading back to his home country of Australia as early as this week.
However, instead of going back to Australia, Assange is actually heading to the Northern Mariana Islands, a self-governing territory of the USA located near Guam in the Pacific Ocean. The capital of the Northern Mariana Islands is Saipan and it consists of 14 islands. He will be appearing in a US federal court to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information, according to a letter filed by the US Justice Department.
Assange's journey will take him via Bangkok, Thailand, as he has opposed traveling to the continental US. The hearing will be held there due to its proximity to Australia. Once the plea and sentencing are completed on Wednesday morning local time, Assange is expected to return to his birthplace of Sydney, Australia. His wife, Stella Assange, who was in the UK for his release, expressed her gratitude to supporters who have been fighting for his freedom for years.
As the founder of Wikileaks, Assange has been at the center of many controversies. In 2006, he founded the secret-sharing website that has published classified documents and videos, including a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists. He also released over 90,000 classified documents related to the Afghanistan war and classified military documents related to the Iraq war in 2010. Additionally, he published files on the treatment of detainees at the US Navy's detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.
Assange's time in prison has been long and grueling, as he spent 1901 days, which is just over five years, at Belmarsh Prison in London. In 2012, he sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and was granted political asylum after facing extradition to Sweden for a rape investigation. However, he was arrested by British police in 2019 after Ecuador withdrew his asylum status and was then jailed for skipping bail.
Now, as he finally walks free, the future remains uncertain for Assange. Will he return to Australia or will he face further legal battles in the US? Only time will tell. But for now, he can finally breathe a sigh of relief as he steps out of prison and into a new chapter of his life.
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