Julian Assange leaves the UK and will NOT be extradited to the US after reaching plea deal following five years in prison
Julian Assange boarding a plane in London
Reuters
Julian Assange will not be extradited to the US and will go free after American authorities reached a plea deal following five years in prison.
After pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information, the Wikileaks founder will be sentenced to time served, 62 months - all of which he has already spent in a British prison.
He will then be allowed to return to Australia, his home country, according to a letter from the justice department.
For many years, the US tried to prosecute Assange for the publication of thousands of classified and diplomatic documents on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars - which they said endangered lives.
Julian Assange boarding a plane in LondonReutersAssange and his lawyers have been fighting the extradition for over a decade. He had long claimed that the case against him was politically motivated.
WikiLeaks published footage of Assange being driven from Belmarsh jail in London - where he has been detained for 1,901 days in a small cell - to Stansted Airport.
He then boarded a private jet that is believed to be heading initially to Thailand.
Footage shared online by Wikileaks shows Assange, dressed in jeans and a blue shirt, being driven to the airport before boarding the plane.
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Julian Assange will be free to travel to his home country of Australia
Reuters
Releasing the clip, the organisation said: "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."
His wife, Stella, shared a montage of her husband leaving prison and boarding the plane with the caption: "Julian is free!!!!
"Words cannot express our immense gratitude to YOU - yes YOU, who have all mobilised for years and years to make this come true. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU."
The deal will be finalised in a court in the Northern Mariana Islands on June 26.
Julian Assange won a High Court bid to appeal against extradition to the US last month
PA
The plane that Assange left the UK on
Reuters
The location has been chosen as Assange did not want to travel to continental US and due to the court's proximity to Australia.
In 2010, WikiLeaks rose to prominence after it released a video of a US military helicopter which showed civilians being killed in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.
It also released more than 90,000 classified US military documents on the war in Afghanistan and about 400,000 secured US files on the Iraq war.
In 2019, the US Department of Justice described the leaks as "one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States".