As negotiations to end the long-running legal conflict between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the United States reached a critical point this spring, prosecutors gave his lawyers a choice so crazy that one person involved thought it sounded like a line from a Monty Python movie.
“Guam or Saipan?”
It was no joke. He was told that his path to freedom would pass through one of two American-held islands in the deep blue waters of the Pacific Ocean.
Mr. Assange, who fears being imprisoned for the rest of his life in the United States, has long insisted on a condition for any plea deal: that he never set foot in the country. The US government, in turn, has asked Mr. Assange to plead guilty to a felony charge of violating the Espionage Act, which would require him to appear before a federal judge.
In April, a lawyer with the Justice Department’s national security division broke the deadlock with a clever solution: What about an American courtroom that’s not actually located in the continental United States? ?
Mr. Assange, exhausted by five years of detention in a London prison — where he spent 23 hours a day in his cell — quickly realized that the deal was the best he had ever been offered. The two settled in Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific, 6,000 miles from the U.S. West Coast and about 2,200 miles from his native Australia.
This long and strange trip ended an even longer and strange legal journey, which began after Mr. Assange — an ambitious hacker who worked against political and national security organizations US expert — repeatedly praised and criticized for revealing state secrets in the 2010s.
The documents include about US military operations in Iraq And Afghanistanas Secret cables were shared among diplomats. During the 2016 presidential campaign, WikiLeaks announced thousands of emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee, leading to revelations that Embarrass the whole party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Yet the negotiations that led to Mr. Assange’s release were surprisingly friendly and productive, with both sides acting out of a shared desire to end the impasse that had left Mr. Assange in limbo and the department mired in a protracted extradition battle, according to eight people with knowledge of the negotiations.
The calendar was a major catalyst. By the end of 2023, senior Justice Department officials had concluded that Mr. Assange, now 52, had served a significantly longer sentence than many people convicted of similar crimes had (he had served 62 months at the time of his conviction).
Despite being charged with 18 counts under the Espionage Act and facing up to hundreds of years in prison, if extradited, tried and convicted, Mr. Assange would likely be sentenced to about four years in prison if his sentences were stacked on top of each other, his legal team calculated in a court document.
Department officials are eager to get out of the messy, time-consuming case, which has made Assange a target for some WikiLeaks supporters. Another factor in the negotiations is “Assange fatigue,” a senior official said.
Moreover, some officials appointed under President Biden were never entirely comfortable with the Trump administration’s decision to charge Mr. Assange with activities that crossed the line between espionage and legitimate disclosure in the public interest, current and former officials said.
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice had no comment. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland told reporters on Thursday that the agreement serves the “best interests” of the country.
By early 2024, leaders in Australia, including Kevin Rudd, the ambassador to the United States, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, began pressuring their American counterparts to reach a deal – not for solidarity with Mr. Assange or support for Mr. Assange. action, but because he had been imprisoned for so much time.
Mr. Albanese: “The Australian government has always said that Mr. Assange’s case has dragged on too long and that his continued detention will do no good.” written on X on the day he was released. “We want him to be brought back to Australia.”
On April 11, on the 5th anniversary of Mr. Assange’s detention, President Biden told reporters at the White House that the US was “considering” Australia’s request to return him to his homeland. However, US officials said the White House played no role in resolving the case.
Mr. Assange longs to go home. His wife Stella told reporters he was having health problems and Mr. Assange had spoken frankly for years about his severe bouts of depression. Even if he had been in perfect health, the effects of nearly 14 years of imprisonment in London would have been enormously stressful. He lived first in exile inside the Ecuadorian Embassy, in an attempt to evade Swedish authorities investigating him for sexual assault, and then five years later in Belmarsh Prison.
One of Mr Assange’s lawyers, Jennifer Robinson, told an Australian television interviewer She believes Australia’s pressure campaign, coupled with the recent positive ruling in Mr Trump’s extradition case, has brought about a change in negotiations with the Justice Department that began six months ago.
Late last year, Mr. Assange’s Washington-based legal team, led by trial lawyer Barry Pollack, submitted proposals in which Mr. Assange would plead guilty to misdemeanor charges, from an off-site location. United States, and was sentenced to time served.
Mr. Pollack also suggested that the government should charge WikiLeaks, not its founder, with a felony for collecting and disseminating sensitive intelligence documents that Mr. Assange obtained from Chelsea Manning, a former U.S. Army intelligence analyst, 15 years ago.
The proposal appealed to some prosecutors in the department who wanted a way out. But after a brief period of internal discussion, senior officials rejected that approach, drafting a tougher counterargument: Mr. Assange would plead guilty to a single felony charge, conspiracy to collect and disseminate passing off national defense information, a more serious crime that included his interactions with Ms. Manning.
Free speech groups believe the deal represents a setback for press freedom, but conceptually, Mr. Assange appears to have no problem with admitting a felony for those reasons .
Instead, his initial refusal to plead guilty stemmed from his reluctance to appear in an American courtroom, for fear of being detained indefinitely or physically attacked in the United States, she said. Robinson said in a television interview.
She made “a rational choice,” she added.
In May, a London court ruled on narrow grounds that Mr. Assange may appeal his extradition. to the United States. That decision offered him the promise of eventual victory, but left him indefinitely imprisoned until then.
Nick Vamos, former director of extradition at the Crown Prosecution Service, the body responsible for bringing criminal cases in England and Wales, believes the ruling may have “triggered” the rush to plea bargains.
But negotiations over Mr. Assange’s release appeared to be going well at the time. The Justice Department introduced the Saipan plan before the ruling, U.S. officials said.
By June, all that remained was to arrange complex legal and shipping logistics.
The Australian government spent the $520,000 needed to charter a private jet to fly Mr Assange from London to Saipan, then back home. His group is Call for supporters on social networks to crowdsource the refund.
Then there was the matter of coordinating his release with British authorities, who quietly convened a bail hearing days before he was scheduled to board a flight to freedom on June 24.
Mr. Assange has a second, ironclad request, made as the story nears its conclusion: Whatever happens in Saipan, he intends to walk out of court a free man.
Justice Department officials felt the judge in the case, Ramona V. Manglona, was unlikely to scuttle the deal, so they agreed, as part of earlier negotiations, to allow him to leave Australia even if she rejected the deal.
That’s not a problem. Judge Manglona accepted the deal without complaint, and wished him “peace” and a happy birthday on July 3, when he turns 53.
Mr. Assange has made a final modest objection — within the constraints imposed on him by the terms of the agreement.
He told the court he believed he was “acting in his capacity as a journalist” when he came into contact with Miss Manning – but added that he now accepts that his actions were “violating violate” US law.
Matthew McKenzie, one of the lead prosecutors in the case, agreed to dissent.
“We reject those sentiments, but accept that he believes them,” he replied.
