After 14 years of detainment and torture for the crime of journalism, of exposing to the public what governments are doing in their name, of revealing the shady dealings of large corporations, of empowering people seeking justice with primary-source evidence of heinous crimes, Julian Assange walks free from HMP Belmarsh (Hellmarsh) Prison in London. Julian will be free and return home to Australia as part of a plea deal that was reached with the US.
Assange is scheduled to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy "to obtain and disclose national defense information" (espionage) in the district court of the Northern Mariana Islands on Wednesday June 26th at 9am; this particular location was chosen due to Julian's justified opposition to entering a guilty plea in the United States. He will be sentenced to 62 months, which under the plea deal is to be credited as time served. Court documents below:
WikiLeaks also posted video of Julian boarding a plane to leave the UK for the Northern Mariana Islands after leaving Belmarsh the morning of Monday, June 24th and being granted bail by the High Court in London. At the time of me writing this his flight has just crossed into Thailand and is landing in Bangkok where the plane will be refueled; they will then set out for Saipan Island that night in local time (per flight tracker using his known travel details and an anonymous Thai official speaking to AFP).
https://x.com/wikileaks/status/1805391265489731716
It is no secret that a plea deal is not as ideal as the charges against Julian being fully dropped, especially considering the deal has him pleading guilty to a count of espionage. Some lawyers & legal analysts are optimistic and have noted that a plea deal will not effectively set a legal precedent, in fact to this point one of the reasons why a deal was not reached sooner was because of Assange's reluctance to take a deal which would have a more crushing legal effect on journalists. However, without a doubt, regardless of what happens in the legal realm, a political precedent has been set; and the 14 year long persecution that Julian had to endure for revealing the US's war crimes is still a massive injustice (that had no valid legal justification either). Furthermore, the state of journalism in the world is still in incredible danger, and many of the crimes exposed by WikiLeaks have yet to witness the perpetrators of them brought to justice. Yet, to see Julian leave the UK and be able to go home is heartwarming and relieving after years of seeing him pay the price for exposing some truths of the empire.
إلا غزال لللللللذي جوّين اللللللكم ما يدوم"
بين للل يامان يامان
عين للل الهنا يا روح.
To those gazelles who are jailed inside, I wanna tell you that this situation will not last
Aman Aman
".I just hope you to be safe
