WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was released from a UK prison on Tuesday and is on his way to the remote Northern Mariana Islands, where he’s expected to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge as part of a plea deal with the US Justice Department. This will reportedly allow him to return to Australia as a free man.
A complex legacy. As the 16-year battle comes to a close, Assange will either be remembered as a champion for freedom of information or a dangerous vigilante.
In 2009, he conspired to use his WikiLeaks website to disclose tens of thousands of activity reports about US involvement in the Middle East in what was by far the largest leak of classified information in American history. Then. in 2016, Wikileaks released thousands of emails stolen by Russian hackers from the Democratic National Committee at the height of Hillary Clinton’s battle with Donald Trump for the US presidency in a leak credited with helping sink her candidacy.
After five years of court hearings, Assange has been charged with conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information. He is expected to be sentenced to 62 months, with credit for time served in a British prison, meaning he would be free to return to his home country of Australia.