Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been released from prison in the United Kingdom after striking a plea deal with the United States.
The Townsville-born, 52-year-old had been wanted in the US after the 2010 publication on his website of more than 700,000 leaked documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
Assange’s release follows 14 years of legal proceedings, spanning from rape allegations by Swedish police in 2010, to his political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy between 2012 and 2019, to his imprisonment in London’s maximum security Belmarsh prison until now.
Assange is expected to plead guilty in court tomorrow to one charge under the US Espionage Act of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defence information.
The hearing is to be held in Saipan, a US island in the Western Pacific, due to Assange’s opposition to traveling to the continental US and the island’s proximity to Australia.
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