WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiring to obtain and disclose US national defense information, ending over a decade of fighting extradition. Assange's plea deal includes a 62-month sentence, crediting the five years already served at a London prison, allowing him to avoid US imprisonment. The 52-year-old is expected to return to his home country of Australia.
The charges stem from hundreds of thousands of classified US military documents released by WikiLeaks in 2010 about the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. As part of the plea, Assange must destroy the information he supplied to WikiLeaks. Assange was granted asylum in 2012 and spent seven years at Ecuador’s London embassy before being arrested in 2019. He faced an 18-count indictment in the US and up to 175 years in prison. In April, the US provided assurance Assange could seek First Amendment protection and that no death penalty would be imposed.
The sentencing occurred in Saipan of the Northern Mariana Islands—a US territory about 135 miles northeast of Guam—chosen for its distance from the US mainland and its proximity to Australia.
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