The WikiLeaks portal has announced on its X account that Julian Assange left the British high-security prison where he was being held this Monday morning and has already left the United Kingdom with the aim of returning to Australia.
“Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of June 24, having spent 1,901 days there,” WikiLeaks reported in X. One of Assange’s lawyers, Aitor Martínez, has tweeted the agreement. “Assange has reached an agreement with the Department of Justice and is finally free,” Martínez said.
The portal assures that Assange, 52 years old and of Australian nationality, “was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and left the United Kingdom.”
“After more than five years in a 2×3 meter cell, isolated 23 hours a day, he will soon be reunited with his wife Stella Assange and his children, who have only known their father behind bars,” states the portal, which concludes his message in X saying: “Julian’s freedom is our freedom.”
WikiLeaks also published a video in which Assange, with white hair combed back, is seen reviewing some papers and then walking up the steps of a plane. According to the AP news agencythe plane carrying Assange would have already landed in Bangkok, capital of Thailand, although it is unknown if the plane is only refueling, or how Assange will continue the trip to the Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific Ocean where he must appear on Wednesday at 9:00 a.m. local time (23:00 GMT on Tuesday) to finalize its agreement with the Department of Justice.
WikiLeaks’ announcement comes after it was revealed in court documents that Assange reached an agreement with the US Department of Justice that will allow him to return to Australia and end a long judicial saga over the leak of classified documents. Assange will appear this Wednesday to finalize that agreement with the Department of Justice.
The American justice had accused Assange of up to 18 crimes for violating the Espionage Act due to one of the largest leaks of classified information in the history of the United States in 2010, which revealed secrets from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as data about the detainees at the Guantanamo base, among other matters.
Under the agreement reached with the Justice Department, Assange will plead guilty during a court hearing Wednesday to a single count of conspiring to illegally obtain and disseminate classified information.
The appearance will be held in a court in the Mariana Islands, due to Assange’s opposition to traveling to the continental United States and the court’s proximity to Australia, according to a Justice Department letter filed with the court.
Under the agreement, which must still be approved by a judge, Assange would only be sentenced to 62 months in prison, equivalent to the time he has already served in the high-security Belmarsh prison.
Organizations defending press freedom have been calling for Assange’s release for years and his wife, Stella, has been leading a campaign in his defense with the participation of celebrities and political figures.
The Australian Prime Minister: “We want him back in Australia”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has already spoken out about Assange’s release and has expressed his desire for him to return to Australia. “There is nothing to gain from her imprisonment and we want him back in Australia,” Albanese said this Tuesday in a control session in the Parliament of Canberra, referring to the 52-year-old activist.
Albanese has praised his Government’s efforts to mediate for Assange and “defend Australia’s interests” through diplomacy in both the United Kingdom and the United States, as he said in Parliament. However, the president has noted that “while we welcome these rapid events, we recognize these procedures are crucial and delicate,” promising more statements once the long legal battle over one of the largest leaks of classified information concludes. in American history.
The Albanese Government, which took power in May 2022, had asked Washington on several occasions to desist from extraditing Assange, something to which US President Joe Biden responded last April that he was “considering” it.
Source: www.eldiario.es
