© WikiLeaksSource: RTAssange leaves UK prison to finalize plea deal with USThe Australian-born activist is expected to strike a deal with the US Department of Justice, court documents sayWikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange was released from captivity in Britain on Tuesday morning, his team has said. The publisher spent five years in Belmarsh Prison in London while fighting extradition to the US, where he was indicted on 18 counts of disseminating classified information.According to newly filed court documents, Assange will soon strike a plea deal in order to avoid further time behind bars.“Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there,” WikiLeaks wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK.”WikiLeaks said the international campaign to free Assange has created “the space for a long period of negotiations with the US Department of Justice, leading to a deal that has not yet been formally finalized.” “As he returns to Australia, we thank all who stood by us, fought for us, and remained utterly committed in the fight for his freedom,” WikiLeaks wrote.According to a letter from the DOJ, Assange will appear in court in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific, at 9am local time on Wednesday. “We anticipate that the defendant will plead guilty to the charge… of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified information relating to the national defense of the United States,” the letter said. The DOJ said it expects Assange to return to his home country of Australia after the proceedings.Under Assange’s leadership, WikiLeaks published multiple top-secret files, including documents related to the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a trove of US diplomatic cables. In 2010, the organization published a video of a US military helicopter attacking civilians in Baghdad in 2007 after mistaking them for insurgents.Fearing extradition to the US, Assange spent seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He was ejected from the premises in 2019, when, under a new president, Ecuador revoked his asylum status. The activist was immediately arrested by British police and subsequently spent five years in Belmarsh, much of it in solitary confinement, after being found guilty of jumping bail.Assange’s legal team, family, and associates have described the conditions in Belmarsh as “torture” and warned that his health significantly deteriorated behind bars.In 2012, the WikiLeaks co-founder hosted ‘The World Tomorrow’ on RT. Over 12 episodes, the program covered a number of hotly debated topics, featuring guests such as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, former Guantanamo Bay inmate Moazzam Begg, and former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. ------------------------------------------------------ Assange freed as part of plea deal A Julian Assange supporter protests in front of Westminster Magistrates Court, while calling for his release from Belmarsh Prison, on April 14, 2024 in London, England. © Peter Nicholls/Getty Images Source: RTThe WikiLeaks co-founder is expected to finalize his release at a court in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange has been freed from Belmarsh maximum security prison in the UK as part of a plea deal with the US Justice Department. The activist spent five years behind bars in London while fighting extradition to the US, where he is accused of illegally obtaining and disclosing national security materials which shed light on alleged American war crimes. According to the US Department of Justice, Assange has agreed to plead guilty at a court in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific. He is expected to be sentenced to around five years, equating to the time he has already spent in the British prison, while the extradition request is likely to be dropped. After the court proceedings, Assange is expected to travel to Australia, his country of citizenship. 25 June 2024 09:24 GMT Speaking to the BBC, Stella Assange has said her husband and the US Justice Department have reached “an agreement in principle,” which has to be formally signed by the judge in the Northern Mariana Islands. 09:01 GMT Former US Vice President Mike Pence, who served in the Trump administration, has blasted the plea agreement, claiming that Assange “endangered the lives of our troops in a time of war and should have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” Pence hit out at the Biden administration, accusing it of “a miscarriage of justice” and of dishonoring US service members and their families. 08:38 GMT US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr has welcomed the freeing of Assange. However, he deplored that the activist had to agree to a guilty plea. This “means the US security state succeeded in criminalizing journalism and extending their jurisdiction globally to non-citizens,” the presidential hopeful wrote on X (formerly Twitter). He added that, if Assange had persisted, “he would have died in prison” due to his heart problems. 08:02 GMT Assange was forced to agree to a guilty plea as for years he wrestled with “the system designed to beat you down,” human rights activist Marty Gottesfeld has told RT. Gottesfeld spent years in a US prison after being accused of launching a cyberattack at a Boston hospital, to expose what he insists was the medical kidnapping and “torture” of a girl. Gottesfeld suggested that the US is unlikely to bar Assange from talking about the harsh prison conditions he had endured, noting that this would be “unprecedented.” At the same time, he did not rule out a gag order prohibiting the activist from further discussing the contents of classified American files. 08:01 GMT Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, who granted Assange asylum at the country’s embassy in London in 2012, has told RT that the activist has been “persecuted for telling the truth, not for lying.” “This has been really crazy. Twelve years of a journalist’s life have been stolen from him for telling the truth. The real war criminals went unpunished,” Correa said. 07:46 GMT Stella Assange, the Australian-born activist’s wife, posted a photo on X (formerly known as Twitter) of what she said was “Julian calling into Sydney from Stansted airport last night” with the Sydney Opera House in the background. 07:18 GMT Murray said that while Assange will have to live within certain limitations, his family apparently believes that the deal is certain. “Of course, nobody really takes seriously this guilty [plea]. It’s obvious… this is coerced. It is a cheap move by the Biden administration, to claim a little hollow victory for themselves.” 06:54 GMT Despite his release and expected deal with the US Justice Department, Assange is a “marked man” and “will always be in danger” after exposing US secrets, Craig Murray, a human rights activist and former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, told RT. This threat, he added, comes “particularly from the malicious forces of the CIA and the United States.” 06:35 GMT The VJT199 charter flight believed to be carrying Assange has landed in Bangkok, Thailand, according to the Flightradar24 website. It is unclear whether the aircraft is refueling after flying from the UK, or how the activist will continue his journey to the Northern Mariana Islands, some 5,000km to the east.

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