WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to enter guilty plea and ends his legal struggle

The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, has decided to enter a guilty plea on Wednesday to a single count of breaking US espionage law, ending his 14-year legal struggle in Britain.

According to records filed in the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, Reuters stated that the complaint pertains to his participation in acquiring and disseminating classified US national defense materials.

Following years of court battles, which included a protracted stay in a high-security British jail and seeking asylum at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, the plea agreement may enable him to return home to Australia.

The 52-year-old Australian editor had already fought extradition to the US, where he was charged with 18 felonies, and had been the subject of accusations of sex crimes in Sweden.

At a hearing on Wednesday at 9 a.m. local time in Saipan, the Northern Mariana Islands, Assange is scheduled to be sentenced to 62 months of time already served.

Prosecutors said that the US island in the Pacific was selected because of Julian Assange’s resistance to visiting the US mainland and because of its closeness to Australia.

Early on Monday morning, Assange departed the highest security Belmarsh jail. His wife Stella reported that he was subsequently granted release by the London High Court and boarded a flight.

Stella told Reuters, “I feel elated,” after the couple’s two kids boarded a plane on Sunday and traveled to Australia from London. “I’m also concerned… I’m concerned until it’s completely approved, but it appears like we’re close.”

Assange was seen signing a paperwork before boarding a private plane in a video that Wikileaks put on X. He was wearing pants and a blue shirt.

His wife said that this helped to spark negotiations for a solution because he had just been granted permission to file an appeal against the US government’s decision to approve his extradition, and the case was scheduled to be heard at London’s High Court next month.