Julian ASSANGE
Wikileaks founder and publisher Julian Assange was released from detention on 24 June 2024. Assange returned to his home country of Australia following a plea deal with US prosecutors, after spending 1,901 days behind bars in Belmarsh High Security prison, London. Assange agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count under the US Espionage Act of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents and was sentenced to 62 months of time already served.
The plea deal followed a two-day public hearing held in February 2024 attended by representatives of PEN International, English PEN and PEN Norway. On 26 March 2024, the UK High Court adjourned Assange’s permission to appeal his extradition order, and on 20 May 2024 eventually granted Assange ‘legal appeal on grounds 4 (violation of free speech rights) and 5 (prejudiced at trial due to nationality) on all counts on the second superseding indictment’.
Assange had been arrested in April 2019 at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he had been given asylum for almost seven years. He was arrested for breaching his bail conditions in 2012, and further arrested on behalf of the US authorities under an extradition warrant for his role in obtaining and publishing classified military and diplomatic documents in 2010. If extradited to the US, Assange would have faced trial on 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one count under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which combined could have seen him imprisoned for up to 175 years. Assange challenged his extradition order several times (see Case List 2023/2024).
On 25 June 2024, PEN International welcomed the release from prison of Assange but expressed concern that his plea deal, while granting him freedom, would set a dangerous precedent for press freedom worldwide.
Julian Assange, born on 3 July 1971, is the first publisher to be charged under the US Espionage Act. On 15 November 2023, PEN Norway awarded Assange the 2023 Ossietzky Prize for outstanding contributions to freedom of expression.
