Julian Assange’s Legal Battle Finally Comes to an End: Whistleblower to be Sentenced to 62 Months in Prison for Espionage Law Violations.

An American judge accepted Julian Assange’s guilty plea on Wednesday, marking the end of his long legal battle. The whistleblower had coordinated a deal with the US government, agreeing not to go to the mainland United States but to settle for his freedom in the Mariana Islands.

During the hearing, Judge Ramona V. Manglona confirmed that Assange had pleaded guilty to a violation of US espionage laws and announced that he could leave the courtroom as a free individual. Assange acknowledged that he had urged his source, US soldier Chelsea Manning, to provide classified material and confessed to violating the Espionage Act.

Shortly after his court appearance, Assange boarded a plane bound for Canberra in Australia, aimed to arrive in his home country by 11:30 am. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expressed contentment over Assange’s repatriation and said that there was no point in detaining him any longer. The Australian government had been involved in the case through various channels and was proud of the positive outcome of their efforts.

Assange was sentenced to 62 months in prison for espionage law violations under the negotiated deal but would not need to serve the term. He had been in a British prison since April 2019 and previously spent seven years at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Facing eighteen charges in the United States, Assange risked a 175-year prison sentence for publishing confidential information on American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, allegedly endangering the lives of American informants in the process.