WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange is expected to plead guilty as part of a plea deal with the US that could end his imprisonment in Britain.
Assange, 52, has been held in a prison outside London for the last five years and fought extradition to the United States.
PAJulian Assange has reportedly reached a plea deal with the US[/caption]
Now, US authorities have reportedly agreed to drop their demand for Julian Assange to be extradited from the UK.
In return for pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information, Assange will be sentenced to time served, 62 months – the time he has already spent in a British prison.
Court documents revealing Assange’s plea deal were filed in the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific Ocean..
However, Assange is expected to get credit for the five years he has already served behind bars in the UK and could face no new prison time.
It would mean that he may be free to return to Australia, where he was born.
Assange has been held in the high-security Belmarsh Prison on the outskirts of London for half a decade.
The charges against Assange stem from one of the largest publications of classified information in American history.
WikiLeaks rose to prominence in 2010 as it published a series of leaks provided by a US Army intelligence analyst named Chelsea Manning.
The information included the Baghdad airstrike Collateral Murder video, the Afghanistan war logs, the Iraq war logs, and Cablegate.
American prosecutors had alleged that Assange put lives at risk when publishing the information online.
Being in fear of the US government, Assange took refuge in the Embassy of Ecuador in London.
He was granted asylum by Ecuador due to fears of political persecution and extradition to the United States.
Assange remained in the Embassy of Ecuador in London for approximately seven years.
He was granted Ecuadorian citizenship in 2018 but the asylum was withdrawn following a series of disputes with the Ecuadorian authorities in 2019.
Assange was forcibly carried out of the embassy and arrested in April 2019.
In May of 2019, he was found guilty of breaching the Bail Act and was sentenced to serve 50 weeks in a UK prison.
The US government also unsealed an indictment against Assange for alleged computer intrusion, related to the leaks provided by Manning.
Towards the end of May 2019, the US government also charged Assange with violating the Espionage Act of 1917.
The Department of Justice “broadened” the charges against him in June, claiming he conspired with the web activist group Anonymous.
If convicted, he would have been held in isolation at the maximum-security Supermax jail in Colorado, described as a “fate worse than death” by a former warden.
Assange has been fighting extradition to the U.S. for more than a decade.
In March, the High Court in London gave him permission for a full hearing on his appeal as he sought assurances that he could rely upon the First Amendment at a trial in the United States.
In May, two judges on the High Court said he could have a full hearing on whether he would be discriminated against in the U.S. because he is a foreign national.
A hearing on the issue of Assange’s free speech rights had been scheduled for July 9-10.
Assange has two children with lawyer and now-wife Stella Morris while living at the Ecuadorian embassy.
The pair tied the knot in March 2022.
He was previously married to Teresa Assange from 1989 to 1999, with whom he has one son.