Assange Freed In Plea Deal, Ordered to Destroy Unpublished WikiLeaks Records

Last updated on August 7th, 2024 at 04:28 pm

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was allowed to go free and return to his home country of Australia on Monday, June 24, after accepting a plea agreement with the United States. As part of the plea deal, he had to agree to turn over or destroy unpublished U.S. records that may still be in his or WikiLeaks’ possession.

The plea agreement allows the journalist and publisher to return to his home country for the first time since 2012. Assange took up residence in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012 amid a series of mounting legal concerns. The embassy revoked his asylum in April of 2019 and London police entered the building to arrest him to face extradition to the United States on espionage charges.

The U.S. espionage charges stemmed from Assange’s involvement in publishing U.S. government records, including documents about the U.S. military’s conduct in Iraq and Afghanistan. The charges alleged Assange put former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning (who now goes by Chelsea Manning) up to leaking him classified information that he then published on his WikiLeaks documents trove website. Assange has previously insisted on his innocence, claiming he had simply received and published the classified information, within his rights as journalist.

The U.S. government had initially levied 17 Espionage Act charges against Assange, along with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. Each Espionage Act charge carried a maximum sentence of 10 years per offense, while the computer intrusion charge carried a five-year maximum sentence.

On Monday, after seven years confined to the Ecuadorian embassy and another five in British custody, Assange agreed to plead guilty to a single charge of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information. He incurred a $520,000 bill from the Australian government to fly on a charter flight from the United Kingdom, to enter his guilty plea in a federal court in the U.S. territory of the Northern Mariana Islands.

With his guilty plea, a judge sentenced Assange to 62 months time served. The plea deal stipulates that Assange would have to agree to turn over to the United States or destroy any unpublished information within his or WikiLeaks’ possession.

“The Defendant shall take all action within his control to cause the return to the United States or the destruction of any such unpublished information in his possession, custody, or control, or that of WikiLeaks or any affiliate of WikiLeaks. The Defendant further agrees that, if the forgoing obligation requires him to instruct the editor(s) of WikiLeaks to destroy any such information or otherwise cause it to be destroyed, he shall provide the United States (or cause to be provided to the United States) a sworn affidavit confirming the instruction he provided and that, he will, in good faith, seek to facilitate compliance with that instruction prior to sentencing.”

The plea deal also stated the U.S. government had not identified any individual victims qualifying for restitution as a result of Assange or WikiLeaks’ publishing the U.S. national defense information they had.

As part of his plea hearing on Wednesday, June 26, District Judge Ramona Manglona asked Assange to describe the conduct to which he was pleading guilty.

“Working as a journalist, I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified in order to publish that information,” Assange replied. “I believe that the First Amendment protected that activity, but I accept that as written it’s a violation of the Espionage Act statute.”

Manglona then pressed Assange to admit his understanding of the law was incorrect.

“I believe the First Amendment and the Espionage Act are in contradiction with each other, but I accept that it would be difficult to win such a case given all the circumstances,” he replied.