WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has pleaded guilty as part of a plea deal with the U.S. Justice Department that has allowed him to go free after five years in a British prison, according to court documents filed Monday.
Assange has been charged by criminal information with conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information, indicating a plea deal. The charges stem from one of the largest leaks of classified information in U.S. history, which occurred during President Barack Obama's first term.
Beginning in late 2009, Assange allegedly conspired with Chelsea Manning, a military intelligence analyst, to release tens of thousands of activity reports about the war in Afghanistan, hundreds of thousands of reports about the war in Iraq, State Department cables, assessment briefs of Guantanamo Bay detainees through WikiLeaks, and hacked emails from the DNC.
The court documents, filed Monday evening in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, reveal Assange's plea deal. He is expected to be sentenced to 62 months with credit for time served in British prison, allowing him to return to his native Australia.
Assange has spent the last five years in the high-security Belmarsh Prison in London and previously lived in self-imposed exile at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for seven years. He was arrested in April 2019 after his asylum was withdrawn. A superseding indictment was filed against him in May 2019, followed by a second one in June 2020.
For over a decade, Assange has been fighting extradition to the U.S. In March, the High Court in London granted him a full hearing on his appeal, as he sought assurances that he could rely on the First Amendment in a U.S. trial. In May, two High Court judges allowed a full hearing on whether he would face discrimination in the U.S. as a foreign national. A hearing on Assange's free speech rights was scheduled for July 9-10.
