SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange pleaded guilty in a US court in Saipan on Wednesday (Jun 26), AFP reporters said, in a plea bargain that will leave him
pleaded guilty in a US court in Saipan on Wednesday , AFP reporters said, in a plea bargain that will leave him a free man after years of legal drama.
On Wednesday, he is expected to be sentenced to five years and two months in prison, with credit for the same amount of time he spent behind bars in Britain. After the hearing is done, Assange will fly to Canberra in Australia, WikiLeaks said on social media platform X, adding that the plea bargain"should never have had to happen".
He was indicted by a US federal grand jury in 2019 on 18 counts stemming from WikiLeaks' publication of a trove of national security documents. The announcement of the deal came two weeks before Assange was scheduled to appear in court in Britain to appeal against a ruling that approved his extradition to the United States.He was arrested after spending seven years in Ecuador's London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced accusations of sexual assault that were eventually dropped.
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