Julian Assange has arrived in Thailand after being freed from a British jail, as his grateful mother says the decades-long ordeal is almost over.
The WikiLeaks founder, 52, has been fighting extradition to the US over espionage charges for obtaining and publishing classified information.
But on Tuesday Australia time, he agreed to plead guilty as part of a deal with US prosecutors which has ended his imprisonment in the UK, paving the way to return to Australia.
Soon after, WikiLeaks announced he had left the UK and released a video of his journey to Stansted Airport outside of London.
Footage shows Julian Assange boarding a flight out of the UK. – @wikileaks via X
A plane believed to be carrying Assange landed in Bangkok later in the day.
Chartered flight VJT199 landed after noon at Don Mueang International Airport, north of the Thai capital. It was unclear if the plane was only refuelling or how Assange will continue traveling to Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a US commonwealth in the Western Pacific, where he will appear in court Wednesday morning local time.
Assange's mother, Christine Assange, said her son's ordeal was finally coming to an end and took a cryptic swipe at hangers-on for using his case for their own benefit.
"This shows the importance and power of quiet diplomacy," she said.
"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.
"The past 14 years has obviously taken a toll on me as a mother."
Assange’s wife and WikiLeaks editor thank supporters outside Belmarsh Prison. – Reuters
Assange's wife Stella was elated, expressing gratitude to his supporters in a social media post that included video of him boarding a flight out of the UK.
She said she had flown to Australia on Sunday with the pair's two children, aged 7 and 5, and had told them there was a "big surprise" coming but that she hadn't been certain of what would happen until the last minute.
"It's been so touch-and-go, we weren't really sure until the last 24 hours that it was actually happening," she said.
She said she didn't want to say too much before the US judge signs off on the deal.
"Until it's fully signed off, I worry, but it looks like we've got there.
"I'll really believe it when I have him in front of me and I can take him, and hug him, and then it will be real."
She said they would seek a pardon because the acceptance of guilt on an espionage charge was a "very serious concern" for journalists around the world.
She also said they would launch a fundraising campaign as the flight from London to Saipan for a court hearing and then to Australia would cost around $500,000.
"The fact that there is a guilty plea, under the Espionage Act in relation to obtaining and disclosing National Defence information is obviously a very serious concern for journalists and national security journalists in general," she said.
'I'll believe it when I can hug him', says Julian Assange's wife, Stella. – Reuters
US prosecutors said in court papers that Assange, 52, has agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents, according to filings in the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.
Assange is due to be sentenced to 62 months of time already served at a hearing on Saipan. The hearing is taking place there because of Assange’s opposition to traveling to the continental US and the court’s proximity to Australia.
British judicial officials confirmed that Assange left the UK on Monday evening after being granted bail at a secret hearing last week.
“Thirteen-and-a-half years and two extradition requests after he was first arrested, Julian Assange left the UK yesterday, following a bail hearing last Thursday, held in private at his request,” said Stephen Parkinson, the chief prosecutor for England and Wales.
Australia has long called for the US to end its pursuit, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese directly raising the issue with President Joe Biden.
Albanese declined to comment directly on the case during question time, citing the ongoing legal proceedings, but reiterated his desire to see his detention brought to an end.
"Regardless of the views that people have about Mr Assange's activities, the case has dragged on for too long," he said.
"There is nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration and we want him brought home to Australia."
WikiLeaks in 2010 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 swaths of diplomatic cables.
Assange was indicted during former President Donald Trump’s administration over WikiLeaks’ 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.
Australia wants Assange brought home, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says. – Reuters
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 news staff. That video 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.
Julian Assange's lawyer Geoffrey Robertson likened the case to the government-to-government negotiations behind a plea deal in 2007 that enabled Australian al-Qaida supporter David Hicks to be repatriated from the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
He was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 by the US-backed Northern Alliance as a suspected enemy combatant.
“It was much tougher with Assange because the Pentagon was so determined to punish him,” Robertson said.
“In the end, I think partly because Mr Biden wanted to clear this off his desk in an election year … it has been resolved.”
Assange's brother Gabriel Shipton says family 'overwhelmed'. – AP
Reacting to the news on social media, Australian Nationals Senator Matt Canavan wrote, “Julian Assange will finally be a free man!”
“It has taken far too long, but congrats to the many that have fought for so long for justice to prevail. Hopefully Julian can be reunited with his family soon.”
Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham welcomed the decision.
“We have consistently said that the US and UK justice systems should be respected,” he said.
“We welcome the fact that Mr Assange’s decision to plead guilty will bring this long running saga to an end.”
But caution was urged by Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce, an outspoken Assange supporter who took part in the Washington delegation.
"We're in the process of a 1500-metre race. We don't stop and start waving at the crowd on two-and-a-half laps, we wait to the end of the race," he said.
Julian Assange on the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2017. – file
Assange was first arrested in Britain in 2010 on a European arrest warrant after Swedish authorities said they wanted to question him over separate criminal allegations that were later dropped.
He fled to Ecuador’s embassy, where he remained for seven years, to avoid extradition to Sweden.
He was dragged out of the embassy in 2019 and jailed for skipping bail. He has been in London’s Belmarsh top security jail ever since, from where he has for almost five years been fighting extradition to the United States.
The guilty plea, which must be approved by a judge, brings an abrupt conclusion to a criminal case of international intrigue and to the US government’s years-long pursuit of a publisher whose hugely popular secret-sharing website made him a cause célèbre among many press freedom advocates who said he acted as a journalist to expose US military wrongdoing.
Investigators, by contrast, have repeatedly asserted that his actions broke laws meant to protect sensitive information and put the country’s national security at risk.
– with AP
Timeline: Julian Assange and WikiLeaks
- July 1971 – Assange is born in Townsville, Australia, to parents involved in theatre. As a teenager, he gains a reputation as a computer programmer. In 1995, he is fined for computer hacking but avoids prison on condition he does not offend again.
- 2006 – Assange founds WikiLeaks, creating an internet–based “dead letter drop” for leakers of classified or sensitive information.
- April 5, 2010 – WikiLeaks releases leaked video from a US helicopter showing an air strike that killed civilians in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff.
- July 25, 2010 – WikiLeaks releases more than 91,000 documents, mostly secret US military reports about the Afghanistan war.
- October, 2010 – WikiLeaks releases 400,000 classified military files chronicling the Iraq war. The next month, it releases thousands of US diplomatic cables, including candid views of foreign leaders and blunt assessments of security threats.
- November 18, 2010 – A Swedish court orders Assange’s arrest on unrelated criminal allegations, which he denies. He is arrested in Britain the next month on a European arrest warrant but freed on bail.
- February 2011 – London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court orders Assange’s extradition to Sweden. He appeals.
- June 14, 2012 – The British Supreme Court rejects Assange’s final appeal. Five days later, he takes refuge in Ecuador’s embassy in London and seeks political asylum, which Ecuador grants in August 2012.
- May 19, 2017 – Swedish prosecutors discontinue their investigation, saying it is impossible to proceed while Assange is in the Ecuadorean embassy.
- April 11, 2019 – After Ecuador revokes his political asylum, Assange is carried out of the embassy and arrested. He is sentenced on May 1 to 50 weeks in prison by a British court for skipping bail. He completes the sentence early but remains in jail pending extradition hearings.
- May 13, 2019 – Swedish prosecutors reopen their investigation and say they will seek Assange’s extradition.
- June 11, 2019 – The US Justice Department formally asks Britain to extradite Assange to the United States to face charges that he conspired to hack US government computers and violated an espionage law.
- November 19, 2019 – Swedish prosecutors drop their investigation, saying the evidence is not strong enough to bring charges, in part because of the passage of time.
- February 21, 2020 – A London court begins the first part of extradition hearings.
- January 4, 2021 – A British judge rules that Assange should not be extradited to the US to face criminal charges, because of his mental health problems.
- December 10, 2021 – The US wins an appeal against the ruling after a judge says he is satisfied with a US package of assurances about the conditions of Assange’s detention.
- March 14, 2022 – Britain’s Supreme Court denies Assange permission to appeal against the decision to extradite him to the United States.
- March 23, 2022 – Assange marries his long–term partner Stella Moris, the mother of his two children, inside a British high–security prison.
- June 17, 2022 – Britain orders Assange’s extradition to the United States, prompting Assange to appeal.
- June, 2023 – Judge at London’s High Court rules Assange has no legal grounds to appeal.
- February 20, 2024 – Assange launches what his supporters say will be his final attempt to prevent extradition.
- March 26, 2024 – The extradition is put on hold when the court says the US must provide assurances that Assange will not face a potential death penalty.
- May 20, 2024 – The High Court gives Assange permission to launch a full appeal against his extradition on grounds that, as a foreign national on trial, he might not be able to rely on the First Amendment right to free speech that US citizens enjoy.
- June 24, 2024 – The US Justice Department and Assange reveal a deal in which he will plead guilty to one criminal count and be sentenced to time served.