Ending a prolonged legal battle of years, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Wednesday pleaded guilty on the charge of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence information. The plea deal will allow him to walk free with a condition of destroying all information provided to Wikileaks, the secret exposing website he founded in 2006.
In connection with the 2010 incident when thousands of classified documents were divulged through WikiLeaks, Assange has long been wanted by the United States.
52-year-old Assange today entered the plea in a US District Court hearing on the Northern Mariana Islands. The place was selected considering Assange's refusal to travel to the mainland United States and its proximity to his native Australia. Earlier this week, Assange was released from the high-security Belmarsh prison in Britain after a stay of five years.
According to the plea deal, Assange is expected to destroy all classified information provided to WikiLeaks. Furthermore, he is also expected to receive a sentence of five years and two months including credit for his time behind the bar in a British prison.
According to the US prosecutors, Assange is now expected to return to Australia. WikiLeaks confirmed his return on social media platform X.
Julian Assange's legal battle
As part of the years long legal battle, Assange has spent over five years in a British jail and seven years in the Ecuadorean embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden due to sexual assault accusations (later dropped) and the United States on espionage charges.
