Assange pleads guilty to espionage before a US court

June 26 () –

The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, pleaded guilty this Wednesday to a charge of espionage before a United States federal court in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific Ocean, within the framework of an agreement with the Department of Justice of the United States to obtain freedom and return to his native country, Australia.

The journalist has pleaded guilty to violating the Espionage Act to conspire to obtain and disseminate classified information, although he has defended his actions in court, considering that his work as a journalist should have been protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution, but has admitted that he probably would not win a trial.

“When I worked as a journalist, I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified so I could publish it. I believe the First Amendment protects that. I believe the First Amendment and the Espionage Act contradict each other, but I accept that it would be difficult to win a case like this given all the circumstances,” according to The Washington Post.

For their part, United States representatives have characterized Wikileaks as a website that deliberately sought to expose sensitive military and defense information that threatened national security. However, they have accused Assange of encouraging senior officials to reveal such information, mentioning documents leaked by former Armed Forces analyst Chelsea Manning, who spent approximately seven years in prison.

RETURN TO AUSTRALIA

On the other hand, the judge asked why the case was filed in Saipan and US prosecutor Matthew McKenzi explained that the island is close to Assange’s country of origin and this would allow him to return home “quickly after this procedure.” . While the hearing is taking place, Wikileaks has indicated that Assange will take a flight at 12:10 p.m. (4:10 a.m. Spanish peninsular time) and that he will arrive six and a half hours later in the Australian capital, Canberra.

The High Court in London released him on bail yesterday after the agreement, in which he pleaded guilty in exchange for a sentence equivalent to the more than five years he has already spent in a maximum security prison in the United Kingdom. From London he headed to Saipan, before stopping in the Thai capital, Bangkok.

Assange was arrested by British authorities on April 11, 2019, after leaving the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he remained a refugee for almost seven years. Since then, he has been in a maximum security prison, under an arrest warrant issued from the United States.

At the end of May, the High Court in London ruled in favor of the Wikileaks founder to allow him to appeal against his extradition order to the North American country, where it was feared that he would face a battery of charges that could involve up to 175 years in prison.

The journalist has defended at all times that the information revealed in 2010 about government corruption and human rights abuses served to publicize war crimes committed by the United States.