After being released and gaining his freedom, Julian Assange, the founder of the famous WikiLeaks website, left Britain yesterday, Monday, where he had been imprisoned for five years in a high-security prison, following the announcement from U.S. courts that he reached an agreement with the Australian citizen to plead guilty in exchange for his release. The 52-year-old Assange traveled through London Stansted Airport, leaving Belmarsh Prison and boarding an extremely expensive flight.
$520,000
His wife announced that the trip from London to Saipan Island, located in the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean, where a court session will be held tomorrow, Wednesday, would cost him $520,000. The reason for this high cost is Assange's opposition to traveling to the mainland United States and the proximity of the island to his home country, Australia. This prompted his wife, Stella, to appeal to his supporters via a tweet on her X platform account today, asking them to donate to cover the exorbitant expenses he now owes to the Australian government.
She wrote, "Julian now owes $520,000 to the Australian government for the charter flight VJ199, and he is obligated to pay it." She clarified that he was not allowed to travel via commercial airlines or routes leading to Saipan and then to Australia. Additionally, she shared the link to the crowdfunding website, emphasizing that her husband's journey to freedom came at a very high price.
Pleading Guilty
A U.S. federal court hearing is set for Wednesday morning on the remote island of Saipan, where the WikiLeaks founder will plead guilty to violating the U.S. Espionage Act, according to the agreement that ended his imprisonment in Britain and allowed him to return to his homeland, Australia, concluding a 14-year legal saga. Assange agreed to plead guilty to a single felony charge of conspiracy to obtain and publish classified national defense documents, according to court filings in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands. He is expected to be sentenced to 62 months in prison, which he has already served in Britain, and thus will be released.
Prosecutors confirmed that the island in the Pacific was chosen due to the fifty-something man with white hair's opposition to traveling to the United States. A video posted by WikiLeaks on X showed Assange, wearing a blue shirt and jeans, signing a document before boarding a private plane marked with VistaJet's branding. The Australian government, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, pushed for the release of its citizen but refrained from commenting on the legal proceedings while they were ongoing.
It is noteworthy that WikiLeaks published hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. military documents in 2010 regarding Washington's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, marking the largest such security breach in U.S. military history, along with a trove of diplomatic cables. This urged the U.S. administration to demand his extradition from Britain for trial, but Assange sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London out of fear of being deported. However, British police arrested him again in April 2019 for failing to surrender to the court, where he has been imprisoned since then.
