Julian Assange freed from Belmarsh prison after agreeing plea deal

After spending over five years incarcerated in the UK’s high security Belmarsh prison, WikiLeaks Publisher Julian Assange has been freed from the threat of prosecution in the United States. WikiLeaks confirmed that Assange had been released from Belmarsh prison on the morning of on Monday 24 June and boarded a plane out of the UK at 5pm local time.

There has as yet been no official statement from the US Department of Justice. But, according to reports, Assange has agreed to plead guilty to one of the eighteen felony charges he faced, one of conspiring with whistleblower Chelsea Manning to obtain national defence information.

Court documents from the US District Court in the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific suggest that Julian Assange may make a court appearance there to confirm the plea deal. According to reports, Assange will then return to Australia, a country he has not set foot in since 2010.

Over the course of this case and several years of extradition hearings in the UK – which we have been following closely at Blueprint for Free Speech – we have repeatedly raised the alarm about what the US prosecution meant for the day-to-day work of investigative journalists working with their sources. Many of those questions about the future of national security journalism in the US and beyond will need to be asked with even greater urgency in the wake of today’s news.

However, there is no doubt that Julian Assange’s release from prison will delight the many individuals and organisations who have been working hard for this result for years, both in public and behind the scenes. In addition to our public courtroom coverage, Blueprint launched a campaign for Julian Assange’s pardon in 2021. We would like to thank everyone who has been part of our efforts – and everyone else’s – to avoid the catastrophe of a US prosecution of Julian Assange. Today’s news is enormous for Assange and his family, but it also belongs to all of us.