WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has entered into a plea deal for his alleged role in a massive government data breach as part of an agreement with the Justice Department that will allow him to avoid imprisonment, according to court documents.
Assange will plead guilty to one count of conspiring to obtain and disclose information related to the national defense in a federal court in Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. terroitory, this week.
The guilty plea must be approved by a judge. Assange spent five years in a British prison fighting extradition to the United States. He previously spent seven years of refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London after Swedish authorities sought his arrest on rape allegations.
Assange, 52, will be sentenced to time served of 62 months, the equivalent to the prison time he spent in the United Kingdom.
His asylum claim was eventually withdrawn by the Ecuadorian government, after they became irritated at his alleged behavior inside the embassy, and he was arrested in 2019.
Seth Stern, director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, told Fox News Digital:
"It’s good news that the DOJ is putting an end to this embarrassing saga. But it’s alarming that the Biden administration felt the need to extract a guilty plea for the purported crime of obtaining and publishing government secrets. The plea deal won’t have the precedential effect of a court ruling, but it will still hang over the heads of national security reporters for years to come."
"The deal doesn’t add any more prison time or punishment for Assange. It’s purely symbolic," Stern added. "The administration could’ve easily just dropped the case but chose to instead legitimize the criminalization of routine journalistic conduct and encourage future administrations to follow suit."
The charges against Assange stem from one of the largest publications of classified information in American history. Assange, an Australian citizen and hero to many free press advocates, disclosed tens of thousands of documents related to reports about the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as State Department cables and information about the detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
The plea agreement comes months after President Biden said he was considering a request from Australia to drop the U.S. push to prosecute Assange. The White House was not involved in the decision to resolve Assange's case, according to a White House official who not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
SUPPORTERS OF JULIAN ASSANGE RALLY AT JUSTICE DEPT. ON 4-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF DETAINMENT
Federal prosecutors said Assange conspired with Chelsea Manning, then a U.S. Army intelligence analyst, to steal diplomatic cables and military files published in 2010 by WikiLeaks. Prosecutors had accused Assange of damaging national security by publishing documents that harmed the U.S. and its allies and aided its adversaries.
Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison. President Barack Obama commuted the sentence in 2017 in the final days of his presidency.
Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) USA, said his group has been fighting to secure Assange's release.
"In fact, our team, and in particular Director of Campaigns Rebecca Vincent, were the only NGO representatives present in the London courtroom for every single one of Assange's hearings and the only NGO to visit him in prison," Weimers told Fox News Digital. "His release represents a vindication of that yearslong fight. This is a victory for press freedom, but until the Espionage Act is reformed to include a public interest defense, this ordeal could happen to any publisher of leaked classified material, including journalists and media outlets."
Swedish prosecutors dropped their investigation into Assange in 2017 and an international arrest warrant against him was withdrawn. However, he was still wanted by British authorities for skipping bail when he entered the embassy.
Assange made headlines again in 2016 after his website published Democratic emails that prosecutors say were stolen by Russian intelligence operatives. He was never charged in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
