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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange looks out a plane window as he reportedly approaches Bangkok airport for a layover.
Assange to go free in plea deal
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.LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - OCTOBER 23, 2021: Demonstrators march through central London in solidarity with Julian Assange ahead of next week's US extradition appeal hearing at the High Court on October 23, 2021 in London, England.
Assange’s last stand?
Assange was indicted in the US in 2018 on 18 charges for the publication of classified documents through Wikileaks, an activist organization he founded in 2006. Assange claims he acted as a journalist exposing US military wrongdoing, while prosecutors counter that he conspired to hack a Pentagon computer and endangered intelligence sources.
Since then, the native Australian has been in “one form of detention or another,” according to his wife Stella Assange, including Britain’s high-security Belmarsh prison since 2019. If he loses his bid to avoid extradition, Assange’s legal team may appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. US President Joe Biden is also reportedly considering an Australian request to drop the case.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrives at the Westminster Magistrates Court, after he was arrested in London, Britain April 11, 2019.
Assange vs. America, again
The legal saga of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange neared its end Monday as Britain's High Court considered his final appeal of a U.S. extradition request.
Facing 17 espionage charges and one for computer misuse over the 2010 publication of classified war documents, the Australian native asserts he acted as a journalist and is protected by the First Amendment. His supporters, including members of the Australian Parliament, have called for his release on legal and humanitarian grounds.
Why has this case dragged on so long? In 2012, Assange sought sanctuary in Ecuador's London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden on rape charges. In 2019, Ecuador revoked asylum, and UK authorities detained Assange in Belmarsh Prison for bail evasion. While Sweden retracted its sex crimes accusations, the US filed espionage charges in 2019 and sought Assange’s extradition — a move he has resisted, citing suicide risks and declining health.
If convicted, the 52-year-old Assange faces a possible 175-year sentence, though American officials claim the figure would be much lower. Assange’s spouse Stella argues the case is a political witch hunt, asserting, “If he’s extradited, he will die.”
What’s next? The UK court will hear the case for two days. If it greenlights extradition, Assange’s legal team may try to get an emergency injunction from the European Court of Human Rights.A rideshare driver in Los Angeles holds a placard, as Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash drivers strike in multiple US cities on Valentine's Day.
HARD NUMBERS: Rideshare drivers go on strike, Artist holds Picasso hostage for Assange, Putin’s Black Sea warships sink to new low, Porsches idle over Xinjiang abuses, Haiti’s gangs make bank
45 million: An exiled Russian dissident artist in France is threatening to hit a “Dead Man’s Switch,” which will destroy $45 million worth of paintings by Picasso, Rembrandt, Warhol, and others if WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange dies in prison. Andrei Molodkin says the threat is an act of protest for free speech. Assange is currently in a maximum security prison in Britain, but next week he faces possible extradition to the US, where human rights groups say his prosecution under espionage laws could pose a threat to freedom of the press.
1,000: About 1,000 Porsche sports cars and SUVs, along with thousands more Audis and a few hundred Bentleys, are currently impounded in US ports after the discovery that the luxury rides contain a small part produced in Xinjiang, a region of Western China where the Chinese government is accused of human rights violations. US laws prohibit the import of any products made with forced labor in Xinjiang.
33: Ukraine says it has now knocked out at least 33% of Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet, following a drone attack this week that sunk the Caesar Kunikov, a landing ship. That brings the total to more than two dozen Russian warships wrecked by Kyiv since Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago.
25 million: Haiti’s powerful gangs earn at least $25 million a year from kidnapping alone, says a new report. That, combined with some $20,000 a week in extortion fees and a brisk trade in human organs, have made the organizations “economically autonomous.” A UN-backed police force has yet to deploy to the Caribbean nation, in part because of constitutional obstacles in Kenya, which was tapped to lead the mission.