WikiLeaks founder Assange released from UK prison after five years

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is set to become a "free man," his wife said Tuesday, once a judge approves a plea deal with US authorities, concluding his years-long legal battles.

Assange was released Monday from a high-security British prison, where he had been held for five years while fighting extradition to the United States, which aimed to prosecute him for revealing military secrets.

He flew out of London to the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific. There, he will plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defence information, as per a court document.

A charter plane carrying the 52-year-old landed in Bangkok around 12:30 pm (0530 GMT) on Tuesday for a scheduled refuelling stop. The plane was then scheduled to fly to Saipan, the capital of the US territory, where Assange is due in court on Wednesday morning.

He is expected to be sentenced to five years and two months in prison, with credit for the time he spent in British custody.

Assange's wife, Stella, said he would be a "free man" after the judge signed off on the deal and thanked supporters who campaigned for his release.

"I'm just elated. Frankly, it's just incredible," she told BBC radio. "We weren't really sure until the last 24 hours that it was actually happening."

She urged supporters to monitor her husband's flight on plane-tracking websites and follow the "AssangeJet" hashtag on social media platform X, saying, "we need all eyes on his flight in case something goes wrong."

The court in the Northern Mariana Islands was chosen because Assange was unwilling to go to the continental United States and due to the territory's proximity to his native Australia, a court filing said.

Under the deal, Assange is due to return to Australia, where the government stated his case had "dragged on for too long" and there was "nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration."

WikiLeaks posted a video on X showing Assange looking out of the window as the private jet landed in Bangkok, then stepping off the plane onto the tarmac.

Assange was wanted by Washington for releasing hundreds of thousands of secret US documents from 2010 as head of WikiLeaks. He became a hero to free speech campaigners and a villain to those who believed he endangered US security and intelligence sources.

US authorities wanted to try Assange for divulging military secrets about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was indicted by a US federal grand jury in 2019 on 18 counts stemming from WikiLeaks' publication of national security documents.

The United Nations welcomed Assange's release, highlighting the case's human rights concerns. "We welcome the release of Julian Assange from detention in the UK," UN rights office spokeswoman Liz Throssell told AFP in an email.

Assange's mother, Christine Assange, expressed relief in a statement carried by Australian media, saying she was "grateful that my son's ordeal is finally coming to an end."

Former US vice president Mike Pence criticised the plea deal on X, calling it a "miscarriage of justice" that "dishonours the service and sacrifice of the men and women of our Armed Forces."

The deal announcement came two weeks before Assange was scheduled to appear in a British court to appeal a ruling that approved his extradition to the United States. Assange had been detained in Belmarsh prison in London since April 2019.

He was arrested after spending seven years in Ecuador's London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced sexual assault accusations that were eventually dropped.

The material he released through WikiLeaks included video showing civilians being killed by US helicopter gunfire in Iraq in 2007, including a photographer and a driver from Reuters.

The US charged Assange under the 1917 Espionage Act, with supporters warning he could face up to 175 years in prison. The British government approved his extradition in June 2022, but in May, two British judges allowed him to appeal the transfer.

The plea deal was not unexpected. US President Joe Biden faced increasing pressure to drop the case against Assange. The Australian government formally requested this in February, and Biden said he would consider it, raising hopes among Assange's supporters for an end to his ordeal.

(With inputs from AFP)