Stella Assange, right, speaks at a press conference in Parliament House following WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's arrival back to Australia, in Canberra, Thursday, June 27, 2024. Assange has returned to his homeland Australia aboard a charter jet hours after pleading guilty to obtaining and publishing U.S. military secrets in a deal with Justice Department prosecutors that concludes a drawn-out legal saga.

I can fully understand why Julian Assange has accepted a plea deal in which he has agreed to plead guilty to a supposed conspiracy to disclose official secrets relating to U.S. “national security.” Given the lapdog nature of the British government, it was a foregone conclusion that British officials would ultimately, one of these days, rule in favor of the U.S. government’s extradition demand for Assange to be delivered into the clutches of U.S. officials. Upon being brought to the United States, it also is a virtual certainty that Assange...

CANBERRA, Australia — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange returned to his homeland Australia aboard a charter jet on Wednesday, hours after pleading guilty to obtaining and publishing U.S. military secrets in a deal with Justice Department prosecutors that concludes a drawn-out legal saga. The criminal case of international intrigue, which had played out for years, came to a surprise end in a most unusual setting with Assange, 52, entering his plea in a U.S. district court in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands. The American commonwealth in the Pacific...

(CNN) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange pled guilty to a single espionage charge in front on a US judge Wednesday and walked free after his 12-year battle against extradition to the United States ended in a plea deal. The controversial figure was released from a British prison on Monday and flew by charter jet to a remote US territory in the Pacific where he officially entered his guilty plea and was sentenced to time already served. Assange then departed for his home country Australia as a free man. The 52-year-old...

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange pleaded guilty to obtaining and publishing U.S. military secrets in a deal with Justice Department prosecutors that secures his liberty and concludes a drawn-out legal saga that raised divisive questions about press freedom and national security. The criminal case of international intrigue, which had played out for years in Washington and London, came to a surprise end in a most unusual setting with Assange entering his plea Wednesday morning in federal court in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands....

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a felony charge of violating the Espionage Act, a move that will allow him to go free after he spent five years in a British prison. Assange, 52, pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiring to obtain and distribute classified information after his organization obtained and published classified military and diplomatic documents in 2010, The Washington Post reported. The plea was entered Wednesday morning in U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands in Saipan, the...

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AP) — A hearing expected to lead to the release of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has gotten underway at the U.S. district court in Saipan. Assange is set to plead guilty to a single felony charge related to the dissemination of U.S. military secrets. The deal will spare him prison time in the U.S., where he was charged with violating the Espionage Act. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below. SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AP) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has arrived...

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AP) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has arrived at a federal courthouse in Saipan ahead of an expected guilty plea in a deal with the U.S. Justice Department that will set him free to return home to Australia. The plane carrying the eccentric computer expert and internet publisher touched down more than two hours before the scheduled start of a plea hearing, in which he is set to admit to a felony for publishing U.S. military secrets under a deal that spares him prison time in...

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AP) — A plane carrying Julian Assange has landed in Saipan ahead of the WikiLeaks founder’s expected guilty plea in a deal with the U.S. Justice Department that will set him free to return home to Australia. Assange will appear Wednesday in the U.S. federal court in the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Western Pacific. Under the deal, which was disclosed in court papers on Monday, Assange will plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain...