Author: Jesse Coghlan, CoinTelegraph; Translated by: Baishui, Golden Finance
Julian Assange was released from a London prison on Monday after serving more than five years in prison and will not be extradited to the United States after agreeing to a plea deal with authorities.
Reuters reported on June 24, citing documents filed by U.S. prosecutors in the Northern Mariana Islands District Court, that the founder of WikiLeaks agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose U.S. defense information.
In response, he could face a jail term of five years and three months - something he has been spending at London's Belmarsh Prison since his imprisonment in April 2019.
His sentencing hearing is scheduled for 11 p.m. Tuesday, June 25, to 9 a.m. local time Wednesday, June 25, on Saipan.
WikiLeaks wrote in a June 24 post that Assange boarded a flight out of the UK on Monday, heading back to his native Australia.
In 2010, WikiLeaks published more than 700,000 classified U.S. documents and diplomatic cables about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq leaked by former military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
Donald Trump's administration first brought charges against Assange in April 2019 after he fled to the Ecuadorian embassy in London for seven years to avoid extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations, but those charges were later dropped.
British authorities hauled him out of there that same month and dumped him in Belmarsh, where he is fighting extradition to the United States.