WikiLeaks founder to be ‘free man’

Julian Assange heads to US court after plea deal

BANGKOK:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is on his way to face a final US court hearing on Wednesday under a plea deal that is expected to bring his years-long legal drama to a close and allow him to return to his native Australia as a "free man".

Assange was released Monday from a high-security British prison where he had been held for five years while he fought extradition to the United States, which sought to prosecute him for revealing military secrets.

He flew out of London to travel to the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific where he will plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defence information, according to a court document.

A private jet carrying the 52-year-old stopped to refuel in Bangkok on Tuesday, taking off again around 9:25 pm (1425 GMT) to fly to Saipan, capital of the US territory where Assange is due in court on Wednesday morning.

He is expected to be sentenced to five years and two months in prison, with credit for the same amount of time he spent behind bars in Britain.

Assange's wife Stella said he would be a "free man" after the judge signed off on the plea deal, thanking supporters who have campaigned for his release for years.

"I'm just elated. Frankly, it's just incredible," she told BBC radio.

"We weren't really sure until the last 24 hours that it was actually happening."

She urged supporters to monitor her husband's flight on plane-tracking websites and to follow the "AssangeJet" hashtag, saying in a post on social media platform X "we need all eyes on his flight in case something goes wrong".

The court in the Northern Mariana Islands was chosen because of Assange's unwillingness to go to the continental United States and because of the territory's proximity to his native Australia, a court filing said.

Under the deal, Assange is due to return to Australia, where the government said his case had "dragged on for too long" and there was "nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration".

Stella Assange said on X that her husband would have to repay the Australian government the $520,000 cost of the charter flight and urged supporters to donate cash.