Release of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange – Ministry of Foreign Affairs – svenska.yle.fi

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is expected to plead guilty under US law to leaking state secrets and be freed after years in prison.

“Julian Assange goes free,” reads a post on WikiLeaks' X.

After more than five years in captivity, he will now be reunited with his family, the post said. Julian Assange, 52, is expected to be allowed to return home to Australia this week.

He should already be out of prison in Great Britain on Monday.

American atrocities exposed

Julian Assange is best known for releasing a video taken from a US Apache helicopter in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad in 2007. The video shows how a group of people are fired upon, killing eleven people. Two of those killed were journalists working for the Reuters news agency.

The example above is one of the large volumes of classified US military material released by Assange on his WikiLeaks page. For this, US prosecutors accused him of divulging military government secrets.

After a flight that began in Sweden in 2010, Assange has been imprisoned in the UK since 2019 following the release of the Iraq video the same year.

Remedy: Imprisonment is sufficient punishment in England

Assange is expected to appear in a US court on Saipan Island, part of the US Commonwealth of Nations' Northern Mariana Islands, on Wednesday morning local time.

Assange pleaded guilty to divulging US military state secrets, according to court records. For that, 62 months imprisonment should be given. Time spent in prison in the UK matches, and counts as time served.

The island is not far from Australia. Assange, who wanted to avoid a trial on US soil, is expected to fly home after the hearing, which is set to begin Wednesday morning.

Sources: Reuters, AB