Julian Assange

Julian Paul Assange ( ; Hawkins; born 3 July 1971) is an Australian editor, publisher and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. He came to international attention in 2010 after WikiLeaks published a series of leaks from US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning: footage of a US airstrike in Baghdad, US military logs from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and US diplomatic cables. Assange has won multiple awards for publishing and journalism.

Assange was raised in several towns in Australia until his family settled in Melbourne in his mid-teens. He became involved in the hacker community and was convicted for hacking in 1996. Following the establishment of WikiLeaks, Assange was its editor when it published the Bank Julius Baer documents, footage of the 2008 Tibetan unrest, and a report on political killings in Kenya with ''The Sunday Times''.

In November 2010, Sweden issued a European arrest warrant for Assange for allegations of sexual assault. After losing his appeal against the warrant, he breached bail and took refuge in the Embassy of Ecuador in London in June 2012. He was granted asylum by Ecuador in August 2012 on the grounds of political persecution and fears he might be extradited to the United States. He stood for the Australian Senate in 2013 and launched the WikiLeaks Party but failed to win a seat. Swedish prosecutors dropped the investigation in 2019.

On 11 April 2019, Assange's asylum was withdrawn following a series of disputes with Ecuadorian authorities. The police were invited into the embassy and he was arrested. He was found guilty of breaching the United Kingdom Bail Act and sentenced to 50 weeks in prison. The U.S. government unsealed an indictment charging Assange with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion related to the leaks provided by Manning. In May 2019 and June 2020, the U.S. government unsealed new indictments against Assange, charging him with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and alleging he had conspired with hackers. Assange was incarcerated in HM Prison Belmarsh in London from April 2019 to June 2024, as the United States government's extradition effort was contested in the British courts.

In June 2024, Assange agreed a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors. He pleaded guilty in the District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands to a charge of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified U.S. national defence documents under the Espionage Act in order to avoid potential imprisonment. Under the terms of the deal, Justice Department prosecutors sought a sentence that allows for his immediate release. He was ordered to instruct WikiLeaks to destroy the information given by Manning, providing an affidavit. Assange will return to Canberra, Australia, with former prime minister and ambassador to the U.S. Kevin Rudd. Provided by Wikipedia