After a long legal battle, Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, the website that leaked US secret documents, has finally been released from prison in the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom released him last Monday.
Mr. about admitting his guilt. Assange has been released by the UK government in continuation of the settlement agreement he recently signed with the United States.
Mr. Assange will now return to his home country of Australia, according to a letter from the UK Department of Justice.
UK police 52-year-old Mr. Assange was arrested in 2019. He was accused of conspiracy to collect and disclose classified US defense information.
For the past few years, the United States has been arguing that Mr. Assange’s organization WikiLeaks released information about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which put many lives at risk.
Incidentally, in 2010, WikiLeaks, a website founded by Julian Assange, caused a huge uproar around the world by leaking the secret documents of the United States about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Then Mr. The United States filed multiple cases against Assange, the arrest process began.
At one point to avoid arrest Mr. Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and spent nearly seven years there.
IMAGE SOURCE,AP
After being arrested in 2019, he was in UK prison for the last five years. Assange. From there, he was fighting a legal battle to be extradited to the United States.
Recently Mr. Assange entered into a settlement agreement with the US government. As per the agreement, he will now plead guilty to the charges against him. But he will not have to go to jail again.
In the United States, the BBC’s partner CBS reported that Mr. Assange will not be sent to prison. On the contrary, he will be compensated for the imprisonment he has undergone so far.
Mr. Assange has already been released from a UK prison, according to his organization WikiLeaks.
The organization wrote on its account on social media ‘X’ that Julian Assange was released on Monday after 1,901 days in a small cell in a UK prison.
“(Monday) afternoon he was released at Stansted Airport, from where he left the UK on a plane,” WikiLeaks said.
Mr. It has also been reported that Assange will then return to Australia.
Mr. X account. Wikileaks posted a video of Assange.
In that video Mr. wearing jeans and blue shirt. Assange spotted at Stansted Airport. However, the BBC has not been able to independently verify the video.
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Julian Assange’s wife Stella Morris Assange ex post Mr. Assange thanked supporters.
He said, because the supporters have been by his side for years. Assange’s demand for release met.
According to the agreement with the United States, Mr. Assange’s conviction is expected to be finalized on June 26 in a court in the Northern Mariana Islands.
It is said that the island in the Pacific region was chosen to conduct the judicial proceedings because of its proximity to Australia.
Mr. Assange’s lawyer, Richard Miller, had no comment on Assange’s release and subsequent proceedings in the case.
However, for a long time, his lawyers have been claiming that Mr. The case against Assange is politically motivated.
Meanwhile, an Australian government spokesman said in an interview with news agency AFP that the case had been “going on for a long time”.
Australia urged the US government to drop the prosecution of Julian Assange.
Then last April, US President Joe Biden said that he is considering the Australian government’s request.
IMAGE SOURCE,AFP
The following month of this incident, the UK court ruled that Mr. Assange can file a new appeal against extradition to the United States if he wishes.
After this judgment Mr. Assange’s wife Stella told reporters the Biden administration should distance itself from “this disgraceful trial.”
After the information leak, the US government Mr. 18 cases against Assange, mostly under the country’s espionage laws.
Then the US government’s counsel wanted Mr. To punish Assange.
Julian Assange founded the website WikiLeaks in 2006.
According to the US government, the website has released more than 10 million classified documents, in what is said to be the country’s largest leak of government secrets.
WikiLeaks released a video of the US military in 2010.
The video shows the killing of more than a dozen Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters journalists, in Baghdad, Iraq.
Because of this incident Mr. One of Assange’s associates, US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
On the other hand, in addition to the case of the US government in Sweden, Mr. Separate allegations of rape and sexual assault were made against Assange.
Mr. denied that complaint. Assange.
Basically, after the case in Sweden Mr. Assange spent seven years hiding in Ecuador’s London embassy.
Because he feared Sweden might arrest him and hand him over to the US government.
Later he was caught by the London police.
During the protracted legal battle after the leak, Mr. Assange has rarely been seen in public.
He is also known to have suffered a heart attack in 2021 while in prison.