Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, reaches a deal with the U.S. government that will allow him to be free

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has been sitting in HM Prison Belmarsh in the United Kingdom, awaiting his possible extradition to the United States since 2019. However, he will soon be a free man as reports emerge that he has reached a deal with the US Department of Justice that will allow him to return home to Australia.

Before he was arrested and taken to Belmarsh, Assange had spent nearly a decade in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London after the country had granted him political asylum in 2012. Unable to travel as he could be apprehended by authorities, Assange remained in the embassy, and it reportedly took a major toll on his mental strength and sanity.

The terms of the deal between the DoJ and Julian Assange

The details of the deal reached between Assange and the US Justice Department are emerging, but it appears that by pleading to a felony, the US government will count his time imprisoned at Belmarsh as time served. The WikiLeaks founder spent five years imprisoned in the United Kingdom, and his release will be welcomed news to his family. Family members of Assange, including his brother and wife, have spent much of the last few years advocating for his release and working to ensure that his case did not fall out of the headlines. No public comments from the family have been made since news of the deal broke a short time ago.

Why hadn’t Assange been extradited to the United States?

Lawyers representing Assange had argued to the courts that allowing Assange to be extradited put his human rights at risk because the United States was unable to promise that he would not be subject to solitary confinement or other forms of torture practiced in American carceral institutions.