’I am guilty’: Julian Assange tells US court in WikiLeaks case, walks out as ’free man’

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who pleaded guilty to leaking US national security secrets, on Wednesday admitted breaking United States law by encouraging classified leaks. However, the law violates “free-speech rights”, he said.

The WikiLeaks founder entered his plea in a US courtroom in Saipan shortly after arriving in the US territory following his release from a London jail on Monday, as reported by the Associated Press. As part of an agreement with federal prosecutors, the 52-year-old will head to his home country of Australia next.

“I am, in fact, guilty of the charge. I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified in order to publish that information. I believe that the First Amendment protected that activity…,” he told the court as quoted by CNN. 

The agreement concludes a prolonged international effort to prosecute Julian Assange, which began after the public release of sensitive US military documents, war logs, and diplomatic cables in 2010 and 2011. This included footage of a US airstrike in Baghdad from a few years earlier.

Assange faced accusations of helping Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning acquire approximately 750,000 classified or sensitive documents. Manning was convicted of leaking this classified information in 2013, but her 35-year prison sentence was commuted by then-President Barack Obama in 2017.

According to a four-page filing by the Justice Department, Assange and Manning unlawfully conspired “to receive and obtain documents, writings, and notes connected with the national defense, including such materials classified up to the SECRET level.

The US criminally charged Assange in 2019 under the Trump administration with violating the Espionage Act and was seeking to extradite him from the UK, where he has been in prison ever since.

The initial charges — 17 related to espionage and one to computer misuse — carried a maximum penalty of 175 years in prison if he was found guilty on all counts, although sentences for federal crimes are typically less than that, Bloomberg reported. 

But the US charges came years after the Swedish investigation, which led to his being detained in 2010 in London. Assange said the Swedish case was politically motivated and after months of fighting extradition while on bail fled to the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Those charges were dropped in 2017, but Assange remained in a small apartment in the embassy as he continued to dodge UK police and American prosecutors.

(With inputs from agencies)