WikiLeaks founder to be released after pleading guilty to US spying

Assange, 52, has agreed to plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose classified US defense documents, according to a filing in the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.

Assange will be sentenced to 62 months in prison at a hearing on the island of Saipan at 9am local time on Wednesday (June 26). However, having spent many years in detention, he is expected to be released and return home after that hearing.

Supporters of Julian Assange protest against extradition in front of the British Consulate in Barcelona, ​​Spain on February 20, 2024. Photo: Reuters

WikiLeaks in 2010 published hundreds of thousands of classified US military documents about the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - including the largest breach of its kind in US military history - along with a series of diplomatic cables.

Assange was indicted under the administration of former President Donald Trump over WikiLeaks' release of a trove of secret US documents, leaked by Chelsea Manning, a former US military intelligence analyst who was also indicted under the US Espionage Act.

More than 700,000 documents include diplomatic cables and battlefield records, such as a 2007 video showing a US Apache helicopter firing on suspected insurgents in Iraq, killing dozens, including two Reuters news agency employees. The video was released in 2010.

The charges against Assange have sparked outrage among many of his supporters around the world, who have long argued that Assange, as the publisher of Wikileaks, should not face charges typically levied against federal government employees who steal or leak classified information.

Many press freedom advocates have argued that charging Assange is a threat to freedom of speech. An Australian government spokesman said: "Prime Minister (Anthony) Albanese has been clear - Mr Assange's case has dragged on for far too long and his continued detention serves no good."

Assange was first arrested in the UK in 2010 on a European arrest warrant after Swedish authorities said they wanted to question him over sex crime allegations, which were later dropped. Assange fled to the Ecuadorian embassy and spent seven years there to avoid extradition to Sweden.

Assange was taken from the Ecuadorian embassy in the UK in 2019 and jailed. Assange has been in London's top-security Belmarsh prison since then, where he has been fighting extradition to the US for nearly five years.

Bui Huy (according to AP, Reuters)

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/wikileaks-founder-se-duoc-tra-tu-do-sau-khi-nhan-toi-gian-diep-my-post300630.html