WASHINGTON (AP) — About a year and a half ago, a lawyer Julian Assange A long-standing demand was presented to federal prosecutors in Virginia: that the case be dismissed against Wikileaks founder,
It was a bold request, as Assange had published hundreds of thousands of secret documents and was probably the world's most high-profile detainee facing an extradition request from the US government. Until then, the Justice Department had been engaged in a long battle in British courts to send him to the United States for trial.
Still, that request, described by a person familiar with the matter, contained the seeds that led to Wednesday's unimaginable moment: Assange While leaving the US court On a remote Western Pacific island, after a dozen years in self-exile and prison, he was beginning his journey back home.
Someone shouted: “How does it feel to be a free man, Mr Assange?”
He smiled and nodded and kept walking. He had another flight to catch to Australia.
The plea deal emerged against the backdrop of a slow-moving extradition process in which there was no guarantee that the self-proclaimed free speech advocate would ever be transferred for prosecution and a recognition by US authorities that he had already served more than five years in a British prison. In the end, multiple proposals and counterproposals were made to resolve points of division: the Justice Department’s desire for a guilty plea to a felony and Assange’s refusal to move to the continental US, where he had imagined a number of potentially disastrous scenarios for himself.
The agreement also included safety valves that would ensure Assange's freedom in Australia in the unlikely event that a judge rejected it at the last moment.
This report is based on interviews with people familiar with the negotiations and the overall case who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the process, as well as a review of court records.
Assange's release took place in the unlikely location of Saipan, the capital of Spain. Northern Mariana IslandsThe case culminated a polarizing legal saga that spanned three presidential administrations and several continents.
This was unimaginable five years ago.
That's when the Justice Department unsealed the charges. British authorities detain a bearded and screaming Assange From the Ecuadorian embassy, where he had been hiding for the past seven years. Assange took refuge after being released on bail in 2012. facing extradition to Sweden in an investigation into sexual assault that was later closed.
He remained there, fearing he would be arrested and extradited to the United States. Receipt and publication by WikiLeaks US prosecutors say he conspired with hundreds of thousands of war logs and diplomatic cables Army Intelligence Analyst Chelsea Manning to obtain illegally.
At the time of his indictment, Assange was perhaps better known for WikiLeaks' involvement in the 2016 US presidential election. secret revealing website Damning email series released About Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton stolen The action, carried out by Russian military intelligence, was what officials said was blatant interference in the election by Moscow.
These releases inspired Trump to make memorable declarations during the campaign: “WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks.”
There were divided views inside the Justice Department on where Trump would soon lead. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had described Assange's arrest as a priority in 2017. action On the leak of classified information.
The issue was not election interference but a hack-and-dump crime of diplomatic cables from years before. The Obama administration debated extensively about charging Assange, but did not prosecute under the Espionage Act – which makes the misuse of national defense information a crime – partly because of concerns that it could be construed as an attack on journalism.
But the Justice Department in the Trump administration took a different path. existence of a criminal case It was inadvertently disclosed by a filing error in 2018. The first narrowly-crafted charge, which came out months later, was a computer intrusion case accusing him of conspiring with Manning to crack a password that gave them high-level access to a classified computer network.
Within a few weeks, the department disclosed 17 other cases accusing him of violating the Espionage Act by obtaining and disseminating secret records.
Prosecutors say he crossed the line by seeking to hack computer networks for classified information and by indiscriminately publishing classified information, including unpublished names of sources who provided information to U.S. military forces. Assange's supporters have said for years that he has provided an invaluable public service by exposing military misconduct in America's foreign wars, just as journalists are tasked with doing.
The case was not legally easy. It also had logistical complexities.
Assange was jailed in London's Belmarsh prison; the Justice Department, however, attempted to secure his extradition – an unsuccessful attempt. Multi-step process This included judges who had joined forces with Assange to seek assurances that he could attempt to defend himself using protections he enjoys in the US under the First Amendment.
Given the possibility of Assange's transfer, his team feared a potential threat. More press-friendly attorneys generalMerrick Garland as a possible attempt to resolve the case.
Nearly a year and a half ago, in the first substantive talks between the two sides, an Assange lawyer made a presentation to Justice Department prosecutors in Virginia seeking to dismiss the indictment. Prosecutors listened, and though the idea was unworkable, they returned months later with a counteroffer: Would Assange consider pleading guilty?
Assange's team responded that they were willing to explore this possibility, but had two lines of defense on what a solution would entail. He would not accept any additional prison time, nor set foot on U.S. soil, because he and his supporters were concerned about what the U.S. government might do to him.
Assange's lawyers floated the idea of a misdemeanor plea, which under federal court rules could be entered remotely without Assange having to travel to the U.S.
When that idea didn’t cross the finish line, the two sides discussed the possibility that WikiLeaks as an organization could be convicted of a felony and Assange of a misdemeanor, one person said, describing an overall effort by both sides “to get to yes.”
The talks were held primarily with prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia, where the case was filed, but also with Justice Department national security officials in the final months.
Department officials, who had wanted to file criminal charges against Assange, eventually signaled deference to his original demands by presenting a concept under which he could enter into a deal outside the 50 states, avoid additional prison time and be released from custody in Britain, the person said.
“That concept led to several weeks of serious deliberation,” the person said. There were a limited number of locations that met that criteria — Guam is one of them — but Saipan was chosen.
“The Department of Justice reaches resolutions in litigation cases when the Department of Justice believes it can reach a resolution that serves the best interests of the United States. That's what we've done here,” Garland said at an unrelated news conference Thursday when asked why the department settled the case.
From the Justice Department's perspective, the more than five years he spent in a high-security British prison were likely equivalent to, or even longer than, the sentence he would have received in the United States.
Meanwhile, the extradition process was tense and slow-moving.
in March, A British court ruled that Assange He cannot be extradited unless US authorities guarantee that he will not face the death penalty and that he can defend himself for freedom of expression like an American citizen.
The US gave these assurances. But Assange's lawyers only acknowledged that he would not face the death penalty and said the assurance that Assange could “raise and rely on” the First Amendment fell short of the protection he deserved. Last month, The court said he can appeal against his extradition order The judges said the US had given “clearly inadequate” assurances.
Importantly, the plea agreement also included some contingencies in case the judge did not approve it. This included a condition under which Assange was allowed to withdraw from the agreement and return to Australia, as both sides had limited time to negotiate a new outcome to achieve the same result. And if the judge insisted on detaining him, the Justice Department agreed to dismiss the Saipan charge.
Behind the scenes, Australian officials had been agitating for his release, and the government wrote a letter to the Justice Department in April asking it to consider a plea deal to end the case, a person familiar with the matter said. President Joe Biden told reporters That month, his administration was “considering” dropping the case. This week, a White House official said the White House had nothing to do with the plea agreement.
According to the High Court in London, the deal with the US, reached on June 19, was one of a number of behind-the-scenes actions that led to Assange's release.
The same day, his wife Stella Assange recorded a video standing in front of a camera outside Belmarsh Prison, in which she said she hoped her husband would soon be freed from his torture.
“I believe this phase of our lives is over,” he said.
The video was released almost a week later, as Assange was flying to Saipan and news of the deal had spread.
“If you're seeing this, it means he's out,” WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said in the same video.
On Wednesday morning, Saipan — a rural Pacific island that was a World War II battleground between the U.S. and Japan and, more recently, a scuba diving destination with lush golf courses — became the unexpected site of a history-making end to a sensational case.
After a marathon flight from London to Bangkok, Assange arrived at the island's imposing federal courthouse on Wednesday morning. The courthouse, which opened four years ago, has tall pillars and spectacular seaside views.
The white-haired Assange entered the courthouse wearing a dark suit and a gold tie loose around his neck. Inside the courtroom, he appeared relaxed, wearing glasses and reading documents and occasionally joking. When the judge asked if he was satisfied with the terms of the plea, he replied, “That may depend on the outcome,” prompting laughter in the courtroom.
Following the plea, the judge declared him a “free man” and Assange flew to Australia, where he was met by his wife and father, John Shipton, who told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that week that “doing acrobatics is a good expression of the joy one feels.”
He said his son would now be able to “walk up and down the beach and feel the sand under his feet in winter, that lovely cold, and he would be able to learn how to be patient and play with his children for a few hours. Experience the great beauty of simple life.”
As for Assange, his future in Australia is certain. He kept his distance from the media at a press conference on Thursday, where his wife said they were hoping for small joys.
“Julian plans to swim in the ocean every day,” she said. “He plans to sleep in a real bed. He plans to taste real food, and he plans to enjoy his freedom.”
Associated Press writers Brian Meili (London), Rod McGuirk (Melbourne, Australia) and Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this report.
