News leaks

Julian Assange spent his youth in Australia during the 1980s in a state of chaotic, perpetual motion. He moved more than two dozen times, bounced from school to school, and was thrust, for a time, into what he called a New Age cult, before settling in Melbourne.

Public interest witness and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is now a “free man” after a court on Saipan Island today upheld his plea deal with the US justice system, ending a 14-year legal odyssey.

“You can walk out of this courtroom a free man,” Judge Ramona Manglona said after a brief session of the U.S. federal court on Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange pleaded guilty in a US court to receiving and publishing US military secrets after striking a deal with prosecutors that ensured his freedom.

Julian Assange was on his way home to Australia as a free man Wednesday after a plea deal ended years of legal drama for the WikiLeaks founder, who had long been wanted for revealing U.S. state secrets.

Assange, who from 2010 published hundreds of thousands of confidential U.S. documents on the whistleblowing website, was released this week from a high-security British prison.

Julian Assange, co-founder of WikiLeaks, will plead guilty to espionage in the US, enabling his return to Australia and ending his imprisonment in Britain. Under the agreement, Assange, 52, will plead guilty to one count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defense documents. He is to be sentenced to 62 months in prison, which he has already served in a British prison.

The 52-year-old founder of WikiLeaks departed from Belmarsh prison on Monday morning and left the United Kingdom - Watch video

This screen shot courtesy of WikiLeaks X page shows Wikileaks founder Julian Assange walking to board a plane from London Stansted Airport on June 24, 2024

Julian Assange was released from prison Monday and has left Britain, WikiLeaks said, as he reached a landmark plea deal with U.S. authorities that brought an end to his years-long legal drama.

The United States is contemplating dropping charges against Julian Assange, as confirmed by President Joe Biden, who stated that he is considering the request. Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is currently in custody in Great Britain, awaiting a decision on whether he will be extradited to the United States.

Two U.K. judges on Tuesday delayed a decision on whether to grant WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a last-ditch appeal against extradition to the United States, giving Washington three weeks to provide "assurances" in the case.

The issue of personal data and how easily it can be leaked has come to the fore again with a conservative MEP allegedly breaking the law. 

Anna-Michelle Asimakopoulou's office sent emails last Friday with campaign material to Greeks living overseas, several of whom claimed that they had never authorized the use of their personal information.