POLITICS
Julian Assange kommt nach Australien zurück als freier Mann
June 26, 2024 - WikiLeaks Gründer Julian Assange kehrt als freier Man nach Australien zurück, nachdem er sich für schuldig erklärt hatte, geheime US Militärdokumente zu veröffentlichen.
Assange’s plane touched down in the Australian capital of Canberra at 7:37pm local time, data from the flight-tracking platform Flightradar24 showed.
He embraced his wife and father and raised his clenched fist in salute to his cheering supporters.
It was the end of a round-the-world journey that began Monday when Assange left Britain, where he had spent more than five years in prison as he fought extradition to the United States.
Assange, 52, flew on a chartered plane to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth north of Guam, where on Wednesday morning he pleaded guilty under the U.S. Espionage Act to a single criminal count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information.
His guilty plea was the final chapter in a legal saga that began more than a decade ago, when he published a trove of classified documents that embarrassed several governments and which the U.S. government says threatened national security and aided adversaries, according to NBC News.