WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Released From UK Jail After US Plea Deal

Julian Assange, founder of the non-profit media organization and publisher of leaked documents WikiLeaks, has been released from a UK prison after five years behind bars.

according to tweet From the official WikiLeaks account, the High Court in London granted bail to Assange. Authorities released him at Stansted Airport on Monday afternoon, where he boarded a plane and left the UK.

Assange released from prison

Due to his plea agreement with the US Department of Justice, Assange will no longer be extradited to the country. Although the deal has not yet been officially concluded, the WikiLeaks founder has agreed to plead guilty to a charge of conspiracy to obtain and disclose information relating to US national defense, and will likely be sentenced to five years and three months in prison, which he has already served in Belmarsh Prison in London. .

Assange’s problems began in 2010 when he published nearly 700,000 secret US military documents about Washington’s wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. The documents, leaked by former US military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, included large collections of diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts, including killings that occurred in Iraq.

While Assange fled to the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2010 to avoid contact with Swedish authorities over sexual misconduct allegations, which were later dropped, the United States sought his arrest. Traditional payment companies like PayPal have closed the WikiLeaks account, which the company used to raise money to cover its founder’s legal fees.

Assange turned to Bitcoin to raise money, despite its founder Satoshi Nakamoto’s pseudonym ProtestsHe was eventually withdrawn from the Ecuadorian embassy in 2019. Since Assange was jailed in Belmarsh for skipping bail, he had remained there fighting extradition to the US until yesterday.

Millions of dollars have been raised in cryptocurrencies

The arrest of the WikiLeaks founder has drawn the ire of press freedom advocates, who have protested and argued that the actions taken against him threaten freedom of expression. The protests led to the creation of AssangeDAO, a decentralized, autonomous organization aimed at restoring Assange’s freedom. DAO has raised millions of dollars in ether from thousands of users.

Clearly, the efforts of the DAO and many freedom advocates have paid off as Assange has been released from prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced on the island of Saipan by 11:00 PM UTC on June 25, which is 9:00 AM Chamorro Standard Time on June 26.

“As he returns to Australia, we thank all those who stood with us, fought for us, and remain fully committed in the fight for his freedom. Julian’s freedom is our freedom,” WikiLeaks said.