WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange freed from UK prison after deal with US

Julian Assange, the founder of the non-profit media organization and publisher of leaked documents WikiLeaks, has been released from a UK prison after five years in prison.

According to a tweet from the official WikiLeaks account, a high court in London granted Assange bail. Authorities released him on Monday afternoon at Stansted Airport, where he boarded a plane and flew out of the UK.

Assange released from prison

Due to his agreement with the US Department of Justice, Assange will no longer be extradited to the country. Although the deal has not yet been formally concluded, the WikiLeaks founder has agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose US national defense information and will most likely be sentenced to five years and three months he is already serving in London’s Belmarsh Prison. .

Assange’s troubles began in 2010 when he released roughly 700,000 classified US military documents about Washington’s wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. Leaked by former US military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, the documents contained excerpts of diplomatic cables and accounts of the battlefield, including the killings that took place in Iraq.

As Assange fled to Ecuador’s London embassy in 2010 to avoid contact with Swedish authorities over allegations of sexual misconduct, which were later dropped, the US sought his arrest. Traditional payment giants such as PayPal closed the WikiLeaks account, which the company used to raise funds for its founder’s legal fees.

Assange turned to Bitcoin to raise funds, despite protests from its pseudonymous founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, and was eventually removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in 2019. Since Assange was jailed in Belmarsh for skipping bail , has remained there fighting extradition to the US until yesterday. .

Millions of dollars raised in Crypto

The arrest of the WikiLeaks founder angered press freedom advocates, who argued and protested that the actions taken against him threatened freedom of expression. The protests led to the creation of the AssangeDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization aimed at restoring Assange’s freedom. The DAO raised millions of dollars in Ether from thousands of users.

Evidently, the efforts of the DAO and various defenders of freedom have paid off, as Assange has been released from prison. He will be sentenced on the island of Saipan before 23:00 UTC on June 25, which is 9:00 AM Chamorro Standard Time on June 26.

“As he returns to Australia, we thank all those who stood by us, fought for us and remained fully committed to the fight for his freedom. Julian’s freedom is our freedom,” WikiLeaks said.

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