Julian Assange walks free after agreeing plea deal on US spy charges

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange flew out of the UK on Monday apparently a free man after reaching a plea deal with US authorities over spy charges that have dogged him for more than a decade. In the coming hours, Assange, 52, is expected to plead guilty to a single espionage charge in a court appearance on a tiny US-controlled Pacific island and prosecutors will seek a sentence equivalent to time served.

WikiLeaks published footage of Assange being driven from Belmarsh jail in London, where he has been detained for five years, to Stansted Airport. He then boarded a private jet that landed in Bangkok, Thailand to refuel. Assange has been a wanted man since 2010 when WikiLeaks released hundreds of thousands of classified US military documents on Washington's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - the largest security breaches of their kind in US military history - along with swathes of diplomatic cables. In 2012, as authorities circled him for that and over 'credible and reliable' sexual crime allegations from a woman in Sweden, he fled into London's Ecuadorian embassy where he remained for seven years in often farcical circumstances.

After falling out with the south American nation's rulers he was dragged out of his bolthole in 2019 and locked up in Belmarsh while the US attempted to extradite him. But that legal process ended abruptly yesterday, and WikiLeaks broke the news with a post on X reading: 'Julian Assange is free!' In a pre-recorded video filmed outside Belmarsh prison, Assange's wife Stella and WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said: 'If you're seeing this, it means he is out'. The group said: 'After more than five years in a 2x3 metre cell, isolated 23 hours a day, he will soon reunite with his wife Stella Assange, and their children, who have only known their father from behind bars.' Assange married Stella, a South African-born lawyer who he met when she joined his legal team in 2011, while locked up in Belmarsh in 2022. Last night she posted on X: 'Julian is free!!!! Words cannot express our immense gratitude to YOU - yes YOU, who have all mobilised for years and years to make this come true. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.'

The couple have two children together, conceived while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy. While he has apparently been allowed to leave the UK to go back to his native Australia, British officials have not yet confirmed his release. MailOnline has contacted the UK's Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice for comment. The Assange circus is now expected to shift to the tiny US-controlled Pacific island of Saipan, 1,500 miles east of the Philippines, where Assange is listed to appear in court at 9am local time on Wednesday (12am London, 7pm Tuesday in New York, 9am Wednesday in Sydney). Matthew McKenzie, deputy chief of counterintelligence and export control at the US Department of Justice, and Shawn Anderson, the US Attorney for the Districts of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, said they expected Assange to return to Australia after the proceedings have concluded. A plane matching the one Assange was purportedly seen flying out on is heading to Bangkok. Assange's family and friends welcomed his release this morning.

His mother Christine Assange said: 'I am grateful that my son's ordeal is finally coming to an end. This shows the importance and power of quiet diplomacy. Many have used my son's situation to push their own agendas, so I am grateful to those unseen, hard-working people who put Julian's welfare first.' His father John Shipton added: 'It looks as though Julian will be free to come back to Australia. My thanks and congratulations to all his supporters… that have made that possible, and of course, the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese.' Mr Shipton said he was 'energised' by the news. 'I don't fade easily, you know. And neither does Julian. It must be a family trait,' he said. The plea deal emerged yesterday when US prosecutors filed criminal paperwork against him in the US Commonwealth of the North Mariana Islands in the western Pacific Ocean. The filing says Assange has agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents.

In the agreement, prosecutors will look for a 62-month sentence - the same amount of time Assange has served in Belmarsh high-security prison while fighting extradition to the US. The plea deal still needs to be rubber-stamped by a federal judge - but if approved, it would give him credit for time served. He would then be officially released from US custody and would be able to make the 3,500-mile journey south to Sydney. In recent months, President Joe Biden had hinted at a possible deal being pushed by officials in the Australian government to return Assange to back to his homeland. Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese today said there was 'nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration and we want him [brought] home to Australia'. He added: 'I have been a very clear... that regardless of the views that people have about Julian Assange and his activities, the case has dragged on for too long'.

An Australian government spokesperson said: 'Prime Minister Albanese has been clear - Mr Assange's case has dragged on for too long and there is nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration.' MailOnline has contacted the embassies in London for the US, Sweden, Ecuador and Australia for comment on Assange's release. Assange had faced 18 counts from a 2019 indictment for his role in the WikiLeaks data breach. It carried a maximum of up to 175 years in prison, though he was unlikely to be sentenced to that time in full. Assange was indicted during former President Donald Trump's administration over the mass release of secret US documents, which were leaked by Chelsea Manning, a former US military intelligence analyst who was also prosecuted under the Espionage Act. Officials in the US had alleged that Assange goaded Manning into obtaining thousands of pages of unfiltered US diplomatic cables.

US prosecutors claimed that the cables were not only embarrassing but more importantly potentially endangered confidential sources. Many contained top secret information regarding Iraq war-related activity reports and information related to detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. The trove of more than 700,000 documents included diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts such as a 2007 video of a US Apache helicopter firing at suspected insurgents in Iraq, killing a dozen people including two Reuters journalists in a video that was released in 2010. The charges against Assange sparked outrage among his many global supporters who have long argued that Assange as the publisher of Wikileaks should not face charges typically used against federal government employees who steal or leak information. Many press freedom advocates have argued that criminally charging Assange represents a threat to free speech. But is was for alleged sexual crimes that he was first arrested, in Britain in 2010. Officials in Sweden obtained a European arrest warrant after two women accused him of offences, one of [sexual assault] and one of molestation, following a speaking trip to the country.

Assange spent years fighting against extradition to Sweden. His supporters alleged the allegations were drummed up to enable his detention so he could be extradited to America over the leaks. So in 2012 when his final appeals were exhausted, instead of fighting to clear his name, he breached his UK bail and fled into London's Ecuadorian embassy to seek asylum. He stayed there for seven years, until Sweden dropped the [sexual assault] charge against him. Swedish prosecutors said in 2019: 'The reason for this decision is that the evidence has weakened considerably due to the long period of time that has elapsed since the events in question.' Eva-Maria Persson, the deputy director of public prosecution at the time, said: 'I would like to emphasise that the injured party has submitted a credible and reliable version of events. 'Her statements have been coherent, extensive and detailed; however, my overall assessment is that the evidential situation has been weakened to such an extent that that there is no longer any reason to continue the investigation.' Assange was eventually forced to leave the embassy after relations between him and officials broke down, with one even accusing him of smearing faeces on the walls - a claim which was stringently denied by his supporters. His team alleged that throughout his time at the embassy, he was subjected to inhumane conditions.

Dr. Sondra Crosby, an associate professor of medicine and public health at Boston University and an expert on the physical and psychological impact of punishment, was tasked with assessing Assange in 2018. According to the Intercept, she wrote in an affidavit she gave to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights: 'Mr. Assange's situation [inside the embassy] differs from a typical prisoner in a conventional prison. 'In fact, his position is worse than a conventional prison in many respects. His confinement is indefinite and uncertain, which increases chronic stress and its myriad of chronic physical and serious psychological risks, including [self-murder].' Despite the allegations of horrific treatment at the hands of the Ecuadorian embassy, he was dragged out by the Met Police in 2019 during Operation Pelican, and jailed for skipping bail. But at the same time, US authorities were indicting him over the WikiLeaks data breaches.

Want more stories like this from the Daily Mail? Hit the follow button above for more of the news you need.