WASHINGTON D.C. — (06-24-24) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is set to be released from prison in England after a plea deal with the United States was reached on Monday. The award-winning journalist who has spent the past five years in London’s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison will plead guilty to violating the Espionage Act, according to court documents. As part of the plea agreement, Assange will not spend any time in prison in the US.
Assange – an Australian citizen, who never lived in the United States, will appear in court on the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory, and is expected to return to Australia following his release from prison.
The USA had wanted Assange ever since he released video footage of the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike, that had been regarded by several debaters as evidence of war crimes committed by the U.S. military. Reuters had earlier requested the footage through a US Freedom of Information Act request, but the request was denied. Assange and others worked for a week to break the U.S. military’s encryption of the video, which they titled “Collateral Murder”.
Julian Assange first presented the video at the U.S. National Press Club. It shows United States soldiers fatally shooting 18 civilians from a helicopter in Iraq, including Reuters journalists Namir Noor-Eldeen and his assistant Saeed Chmagh.
Assange has been incarcerated in Belmarsh Prison since 2019, where he was arrested by British authorities from the Ecuadorian Embassy where he had been seeking asylum since 2012.
Article by: Paul Goldberg, Staff Writer
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