Wikileaks' Julian Assange Lands In Saipan Before Guilty Plea In Deal With US Securing His Freedom
Date
6/25/2024 7:29:05 PM
(MENAFN- The Peninsula)
AP
SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands: A plane carrying Julian Assange has landed in Saipan ahead of the WikiLeaks founder's expected guilty plea in a deal with the US Justice Department that will set him free to return home to Australia.
Assange will appear on Wednesday in the US federal court in the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a US commonwealth in the Western Pacific.
This screen shot courtesy of the WikiLeaks X account @wikileaks posted on June 25, 2024 shows WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange stepping off his flight from London upon arriving in Bangkok for a layover at Don Mueang International Airport in the Thai capital. (Photo by WikiLeaks / WikiLeaks / AFP)
Under the deal, which was disclosed in court papers on Monday, Assange will plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information.
Prosecutors have agreed to a sentence of the five years Assange has already served in a high-security British prison while fighting extradition to the US to face charges. After the hearing, he is expected to return to Australia.
The case stems from WikiLeaks' publication more than a decade ago of hundreds of thousands of secret US military documents related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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