Willingness to move forward on all counts offers Julian Assange self-governance

Talks to end the long-running prison dispute between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the United States reached a critical level this spring, with prosecutors presenting his lawyers with a decision so crazy that a man Thought it sounded like a version of Monty Python. film.

“Guam or Saipan?”

This was once the story of the negative shaggy dog. They were once told that their path to self-rule would pass through two American-held islands in the blue expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

Mr. Assange, who feared jail for the rest of his generation in the United States, had long insisted on a condition for any plea: that he never agree to manufacture within the country. Are. In return, the US executive had demanded that Mr Assange plead guilty to a criminal charge for violating his spying employment, requiring him to appear before a federal judge.

In April, a lawyer in the Justice Department’s national security section approached the impasse with a clever solution: How about a U.S. court that wasn’t actually inside the mainland United States?

Mr Assange, ill from five years of imprisonment in a London prison – where he spent 23 hours a year on his mobile phone – summarily said the offer was the best he had ever received. Both sides settled on Saipan, within the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific, 6,000 miles from the US West Coast and about 2,200 miles from their native Australia.

This long, strange journey ended after a long, strange prison journey that began after Mr Assange – a motivated hacker-activist who attacked US national security and political institutions – was alternatively celebrated and imprisoned in the 2010s. Condemned for revealing status secrets in the decade.

These included the topics of the US military’s role in Iraq and Afghanistan, in addition to unpublished cables shared between diplomats. During the 2016 presidential campaign, WikiLeaks leaked thousands of emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee, known for regrettable revelations on the party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

But the talks that concluded after Mr. Assange’s death were unusually cordial and environmentally friendly, as all sides acted with a mutual desire to end the impasse that has left Mr. Assange in limbo and the region. Was stuck in an old problem. 8 Conformity to the crowd with knowledge of extradition conflict, negotiations.

The calendar was once a huge catalyst. Last fall, senior justice officials concluded that Mr. Assange, now 52, ​​had already served a significantly longer sentence than many people convicted of similar crimes (he was given up to 62 months. Was kept in prison). the speed of its fall).

Despite the fact that he was charged with 18 counts under espionage employment, and served several years in prison, Mr. Assange, if extradited, tried, and convicted, would probably receive about 4 The sentence would have been years had it been stacked at the same time as his sentence, his prison team calculated in a court document.

Authorities in the region are desperate to get rid of the difficult, time-consuming case that has made some Assange prosecutors the target of WikiLeaks supporters. A senior official said another factor in the talks was “Assange’s fatigue”.

In addition, the sources and former officials said that some officials appointed under President Biden never fully agreed with the Trump leadership’s decision to convict Mr. Assange for actions that amounted to espionage carried out in the interest of the population and actual Used to reduce the size between reveals.

A Justice Sector spokesperson had negative comments. Lawyer Basic Merrick B. Garland told reporters Thursday that the proposal serves the country’s “best interests.”

As early as 2024, Australia’s leaders, including Ambassador to the United States Kevin Rudd and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, began pressuring their US opposition parties to reach a resolution – not with Mr Assange – out of team spirit. , or support for his activities, although because he had spent so much time in captivity.

“The Australian government has consistently stated that Mr. Assange’s case has dragged on for too long, and that nothing will be achieved by his continued imprisonment,” Mr. Albanese wrote on X in the year of his fall. “We want him to be repatriated to Australia.”

On April 11, the fifth day of Mr. Assange’s imprisonment, President Biden told reporters in White Area that the United States was “considering” Australia’s request to send him back to his home. However, US officials said that the White Area played a negative role in resolving the matter.

Mr. Assange once decided to change his house. His wife, Stella, told reporters that he was experiencing health-related problems, and Mr. Assange had spoken openly about his bouts of severe depression over the years. Even though he was in the best of conditions, the burden of spending almost 14 years in London was a great pressure. He first lived in exile in the Ecuadorian embassy, ​​in a struggle to avoid Swedish government investigation for sexual assault, and spent the next five years in Belmarsh prison.

Jennifer Robinson, believed to be one of Mr Assange’s lawyers, told an Australian TV interviewer that she believed the Australian force operation, combined with a good contemporary ruling in his extradition case, had kept Justice for six months. Negotiations with the Area Foundation have brought about a change. last.

Recently, Mr. Assange’s Washington-based prison team submitted a motion, led by trial lawyer Barry Pollack, that would see Mr. Assange held accountable and sentenced on misdemeanor charges stemming from a website outside the United States. Service was provided promptly.

Mr. Pollack also suggested that the federal government had commissioned WikiLeaks, not its founder, to obtain and disseminate sensitive classified documents with a criminal record, including Mr. Assange, a former senior U.S. Army man 15 years ago. Received from analyst Chelsea Manning.

The deal attracted some prosecutors in the area who wanted a ramp to proceed. However, after a period of internal discussion was cut short, senior officials rejected that approach, drafting a slightly more difficult counterproposal: Mr. Assange would plead for a single legal count, conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defense information. , a more serious offense that involved his interactions with Ms. Manning.

Different vocal groups believe the guarantee is a blow to freedom of the press, although Mr. Assange sees no fault ideologically with accepting the law in those areas.

Rather, Ms. Robinson said in the TV interview, her initial refusal to be held accountable as a criminal was rooted in her reluctance to appear in a U.S. court for fear of being detained indefinitely or physically attacked.

“They made a rational choice,” he said.

In May, a London court ruled in narrow areas that Mr. Assange could appeal his extradition to the United States. That call ultimately guaranteed him victory, although it left him indefinitely imprisoned.

Nick Vamos, the former head of extradition at the Crown Prosecution Service, which is responsible for bringing criminal cases to the fore in England and Wales, believes the decision would have accelerated the plea offer.

However it appears that negotiations for Mr Assange’s release subsequently went well. US officials said the jurisdiction had begun its Saipan planning even before the decision.

By June, all that remained was to arrange for an advanced prison and transportation logistics.

Australia’s executive announced the hiring of a $520,000 private jet to fly Mr. Assange from London to Saipan and then back home. His team is appealing to supporters on social media for payment through crowdsourcing.

Upon arrival there it was a matter of coordinating his release with the British government, which quietly called a bail hearing a few days before he was scheduled to depart for self-rule on 24 June.

Mr. Assange had a second ironclad demand, which came into play as the saga neared its conclusion: No matter what would happen in Saipan, he intended to be a different man outside the courtroom.

Jurisdiction officials saw little chance that Judge Ramona V. Manglona would deny the motion in the case. So they would undoubtedly, as part of the initial negotiations, allow him to be released to Australia, although he rejected the guarantee.

This was not a fault. The judge on Manglona granted the motion without complaint, and wished him “peace” and a happy birthday on July 3, when he would have turned 53.

Mr Assange settled on one, insignificant final objection – within the constraints imposed on him through the terms of the proposal.

He told the court that he believed he was “acting as a journalist” when interacting with Ms Manning – although he also said he now accepted that his actions were in violation of US law. There were violations.

Matthew McKenzie, the prosecutor who probably has the most to manage this case, is undoubtedly negative.

“We reject those sentiments, but acknowledge that he believes them,” he responded.