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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange pleaded guilty on Wednesday to one count of conspiracy for releasing troves of classified documents via his website WikiLeaks. He was released with time served.
Assange was released Monday after 12 years of confinement, having negotiated a plea deal with the US Department of Justice on charges related to his website’s publication of classified materials.
In 2006, Assange founded WikiLeaks, a website reputed for high-profile releases of leaked classified documents, including unredacted US diplomatic cables and sensitive defense information. A deeply polarizing figure, his supporters see him as a champion of free speech whose dedication to transparency has exposed war crimes and human rights abuses, while his critics see him as a threat to national security whose leaks endangered lives.
He had spent the past five years in a UK prison, where he had been battling extradition requests from the US. For seven years prior, he was confined to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he had sought refuge from legal battles in the US, on national security grounds, and in Sweden, where he was accused of sexual misconduct. Though he was initially granted asylum by Ecuadorian authorities, the grant was revoked in 2019, and he was taken into custody by British authorities.
Assange had faced 18 counts in the US related to the acquisition and dissemination of military and intelligence leaks. Had he been extradited to the US, he could have faced up to 175 years in prison under the US Department of Justice’s previous indictment. Updated charging documents released Tuesday charge Assange with one count of Conspiracy to Obtain and Disclose National Defense Information. The document alleges that Assange worked with former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to publish leaked US documents classified as top secret, secret, and confidential. Manning was sentenced in 2013 to 35 years in military prison for leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, including most infamously a 2007 video that showed US Army airstrikes firing on people from helicopters, killing several of them, including two Reuters journalists. Then-US President Barrack Obama commuted Manning’s sentence in 2017, citing disproportionate punishment.
Assange entered his plea before a US federal court in the Northern Mariana Islands — a US commonwealth about 3,500 miles north of Sydney, Australia. According to court documents, Assange had been resistant to entering a plea in the US mainland, thus prompting the parties to agree to the remote Pacific Ocean location.
The post Assange pleads guilty to one count of US espionage, walks free appeared first on JURIST - News.
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Assange was released Monday after 12 years of confinement, having negotiated a plea deal with the US Department of Justice on charges related to his website’s publication of classified materials.
In 2006, Assange founded WikiLeaks, a website reputed for high-profile releases of leaked classified documents, including unredacted US diplomatic cables and sensitive defense information. A deeply polarizing figure, his supporters see him as a champion of free speech whose dedication to transparency has exposed war crimes and human rights abuses, while his critics see him as a threat to national security whose leaks endangered lives.
He had spent the past five years in a UK prison, where he had been battling extradition requests from the US. For seven years prior, he was confined to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he had sought refuge from legal battles in the US, on national security grounds, and in Sweden, where he was accused of sexual misconduct. Though he was initially granted asylum by Ecuadorian authorities, the grant was revoked in 2019, and he was taken into custody by British authorities.
Assange had faced 18 counts in the US related to the acquisition and dissemination of military and intelligence leaks. Had he been extradited to the US, he could have faced up to 175 years in prison under the US Department of Justice’s previous indictment. Updated charging documents released Tuesday charge Assange with one count of Conspiracy to Obtain and Disclose National Defense Information. The document alleges that Assange worked with former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to publish leaked US documents classified as top secret, secret, and confidential. Manning was sentenced in 2013 to 35 years in military prison for leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, including most infamously a 2007 video that showed US Army airstrikes firing on people from helicopters, killing several of them, including two Reuters journalists. Then-US President Barrack Obama commuted Manning’s sentence in 2017, citing disproportionate punishment.
Assange entered his plea before a US federal court in the Northern Mariana Islands — a US commonwealth about 3,500 miles north of Sydney, Australia. According to court documents, Assange had been resistant to entering a plea in the US mainland, thus prompting the parties to agree to the remote Pacific Ocean location.
The post Assange pleads guilty to one count of US espionage, walks free appeared first on JURIST - News.
Continue reading...
Note: We don't have any responsibilities about this news. Its been posted here by Feed Reader and we had no controls and checking on it. And because News posted here will be deleted automatically after 21 days, threads are closed so that no one spend time to post and discuss here. You can always check the source and discuss in their site.