WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is expected to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge this week as part of an agreement with the Department of Justice that would allow him to walk free after being imprisoned in the U.K. for five years.
Assange was charged with conspiracy to obtain and disclose national-defense information, according to court documents released Monday. The plea deal marks the defendant’s latest chapter in the Australian computer expert’s years-long legal battle with the U.S., which has sought to extradite him from the U.K. for publishing classified documents on WikiLeaks in 2010.
Federal prosecutors are seeking a 62-month sentence, which is the same amount of time that Assange spent in a British prison while he continued fighting his U.S. extradition order. Prosecutors plan on crediting those 62 months served and allowing Assange to immediately return to Australia, his native country, upon his release.
Assange is scheduled to enter his guilty plea on Wednesday in the Pacific Ocean’s Northern Mariana Islands, DOJ official Matthew McKenzie wrote in a Monday letter to U.S. district judge Ramona Manglona. The federal judge must still approve the plea deal.
McKenzie said the court hearing is being held in the U.S. commonwealth because of its proximity to Australia. Also, Assange’s opposition to traveling to the continental U.S. for his guilty plea was taken into account.
Assange faces a total of 18 criminal counts — 17 espionage charges and one charge for conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. Assange was accused of conspiring with military intelligence analyst Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning to leak a trove of documents that included footage of a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad, military logs from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and diplomatic cables.
Assange’s lawyers have argued that their client’s actions were protected by the First Amendment and done in the public interest. On the other hand, federal prosecutors have claimed that the leaks harmed U.S. national security and endangered the lives of American agents.
Assange was arrested in 2019 after spending the previous seven years inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He has since spent the past five years in a British high-security prison. His wife and supporters continue standing up for his well-being, as the 52-year-old has suffered immense physical and mental stress since confining himself to the embassy between 2012 and 2019. Ecuador eventually kicked him out, leading to his arrest.
News of the plea deal comes one month after a U.K. court ruled that Assange can appeal his extradition to the U.S., handing him a major win in his case to avoid punishment for his alleged crimes.
In April, President Joe Biden said he was “considering” Australia’s request to drop the case entirely and let Assange return to his home country instead of getting sent to the U.S. Two months before that, the Australian parliament passed a motion calling for the return of Assange to his home country.