It’s been a long and bitter battle for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Facing espionage charges, Julianne has managed to avert extradition to US and secure release from a British jail but not before serving decades in confinement first as a refugee in the Ecuador embassy and then in Belmarsh jail in UK .
A post in WikiLeaks twitter handle says: Julian Assange is free. 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.
It’s a story of a man who some might called an international spy and hacker, while others might hail as a truth seeker, a journalist who exposed war crimes and disclosed excesses of US military in various conflicts.
Assange launched WikiLeaks in 2006 and the website rose to prominence in April 2010. Wikileaks released classified U.S. military documents on Afghanistan war and 400,000 secret U.S. files on the Iraq war during 2010-2011. The leaks angered U.S. politicians and military officials and Assange was prosecuted on charges of espionage for what turned out to be the largest security breaches in U.S military history.
Assange will now plead guilty in a U.S. court in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, a location that has been carefully chosen. Saipan is US territory though its residents do not have voting rights. It’s away from mainland US and closer to Assange’s home country of Australia.
As per the legal deal Assange is due to be sentenced to 62 months of jail term, a duration that he has already served behind bars. After his official release Juliane will return to Australia to reunite with his wife Stella and their two kids who have only known him as a prisoner.
