Washington, June 26 (UNI) Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, on Wednesday pleaded guilty to a single felony count of violating the Espionage Act in federal court in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, as part of a deal with U.S. Justice Department to avoid further prison time and ending the years-long legal saga.
Despite having to admit guilt to a single felony count of “unlawfully obtaining and disseminating classified information relating to the national defense,” Assange would be allowed to go back to Australia without serving any prison sentence in the United States.
The U.S. Justice Department agreed to conduct the hearing on the remote island, a U.S. commonwealth in the Pacific, because Assange did not want to come to the continental United States.
Assange was embroiled in a lengthy legal battle with the U.S. government due to his role in acquiring and releasing classified military and diplomatic documents between 2009 and 2011. These files included hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. military documents related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
