- विज्ञापन -
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who was jailed on charges of spying on America, was released from London jail on Tuesday (25 June) after 5 years. He has admitted to spying under an agreement with the US government.
According to US District Court documents, 52-year-old Assange has made an agreement with the US. Under this, he will appear in the US’s Saipan Court on Wednesday. Here he will accept the charge of conspiring to obtain US intelligence documents.
After accepting the charge, Assange will be sentenced to 62 months (5 years 2 months) in jail, which he has already completed. Julian has so far served 1901 days in British jail.
After the agreement with the US, he was released from Britain’s high-security prison Belmarsh on Monday. From here he left directly for his country Australia.
‘Julian Assange is free’
After the agreement, WikiLeaks posted on social media and informed about Julian Assange’s release. They wrote ‘Julian Assange is free.’ Julian’s wife Stella said, “I thank Julian’s supporters who supported him for years. How grateful we are to them cannot be expressed in words. It is because of their support that Julian is returning home today.”
America had accused him of spying
Australian citizen Assange had made thousands of classified documents public in 2010-11. This also included documents related to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Through this, he had accused the US, England and NATO forces of war crimes.
After WikiLeaks’ revelations in 2010-11, America had accused Julian Assange of spying on their country. He published the secret file, which endangered the lives of many people.
However, Julian Assange always denied the allegations of spying. Later, Assange was also accused that during the US presidential election, Russian intelligence agencies had hacked emails related to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and given them to WikiLeaks. He was fighting a legal battle for the last 13 years.
Assange was arrested for the first time in 2010, 18 cases registered in America
Assange was arrested in London in 2010 on Sweden’s appeal. Two Swedish women had accused him of rape. To avoid being sent to Sweden, Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2012. In this way he escaped arrest.
He remained in Ecuador between 2012 and 2019. On 11 April 2019, he missed appearing in court. Later the Ecuadorian government refused to grant him asylum. The reason for this was said to be continuous violation of international agreements. In 2019, the British police arrested him when he came out of the Ecuadorian Embassy.
Since then he remained lodged in Belmarsh Jail in London. However, Sweden withdrew the rape charges against Assange in November 2019, but despite this he remained in jail. In April 2019, the US accused him of conspiring to hack. On May 23, 2019, the US Grand Jury registered 18 cases of espionage against Assange.
The US was continuously fighting the case to extradite Assange for 4 years. However, the London court rejected the extradition plea citing Assange’s health and mental condition. Julian Assange was a computer programmer and hacker before founding WikiLeaks. Due to his work, he was awarded the Economist Freedom of Expression Award in 2008 and the Sam Adams Award in 2010.
