After completing his 14-year legal saga, WikiLeaks founder has finally returned home. Julian Assange landed in Canberra, Australia on Wednesday evening (local time). His return became possible after the US court in Saipan agreed to release him under a plea deal. The 52-year-old Assange admitted to receiving and publishing US military secrets.
The Saipan court sentenced Assange to 5 years and 2 months in prison. However, he spent more time in a UK prison awaiting extradition to the US. Therefore, district judge Ramona Manquana said Assange is free.
"We did it. 14 years of legal battles, and we are finally taking him home to Australia, so that he can reunite with Stella Assange and his children, and regain his life," said Jen Robinson, one of the lawyers who worked for Assange.
Throughout the more than decade-long legal saga, Assange spent over 5 years in a high-security prison in the UK, and the previous 7 years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
In the US, he faced 18 criminal charges. If convicted, Assange would have faced almost 175 years in prison. However, the US dropped all other charges except one of conspiracy to receive and disclose national defense information.
The case centered around the massive information leak on WikiLeaks in 2010, when the site published a video from a US military helicopter showing the killing of civilians in Baghdad, Iraq. It also published thousands of confidential documents revealing that American military killed hundreds of civilians in undisclosed incidents during the Afghanistan war. Thousands of confidential documents were also published, exposing killings of innocent civilians by American military in Afghanistan, sparking global outrage and leading to a complete reassessment of the United States' involvement in foreign conflicts.
Source: interestingengineering
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