Washington was released on bail and transferred to the Kadena US Air Base in Okinawa for custody, according to a government spokesperson. His trial will begin July 12, according to the Naha District Court spokesperson.
The prosecution comes at a time when Washington and Tokyo are deepening their military alliance – in part as geopolitical tensions rise with both China and North Korea.
The alleged rape is the latest in a history of criminal cases involving US personnel in Okinawa, home to one of the largest US foreign military bases, and could exacerbate tensions with residents who have long opposed the presence of American troops and weaponry on the island.
The presence of V-22 Ospreys, a tiltrotor military aircraft, have also been a regular source of anger and protest in Okinawa following a series of recent crashes and noise complaints.
Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki told reporters Tuesday the allegations of rape and kidnap were “extremely regrettable,” adding it was necessary “to strongly protest against the US military and other related organizations.”
The governor also said his office will “take a tough stance in dealing with the situation.”
“We understand and share the local community’s concerns regarding this case,” Nelson said, adding that Wing leadership was “deeply concerned by the severity of this alleged crime,” and has been working with local authorities to investigate the allegations.
“All US service members are expected to uphold the highest standards, and the US military is committed to holding accountable those who are convicted of criminal acts,” the Wing spokesperson said.
The indictment comes nearly 30 years after three US servicemen raped a 12-year-old Okinawa schoolgirl in 1995, sparking a backlash against the US military on the island.
In 2016, the rape and murder of a 20-year-old woman by a former US base worker in Okinawa triggered mass protests in the island’s capital, with tens of thousands of residents demanding the US move its bases outside of Okinawa. The fallout resulted in curfews for US personnel on the island.
In another crime involving US personnel in Japan, a US Navy officer killed two Japanese nationals while driving down Mount Fuji in 2021.
Masataka Okano, Japan’s Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs, called for stricter discipline and lodged a protest with the US Ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, on March 27, the day Washington was indicted, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
Japan and the US have a mutual defense alliance and a decades old military partnership that has only been deepened in recent years by regional threats, particularly North Korea and an ever more assertive China.
US President Joe Biden met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at Camp David in August 2023 in a show of solidarity and force against Beijing.
In what Biden hailed as a “new era of cooperation,” the three powers committed to a yearly trilateral summit, intelligence sharing and annual military exercises.
International banks are playing a significant role in the Myanmar military junta’s ability to carry out its systematic and deadly assault on its people, a new United Nations-backed report has found.
Thai banks have now become the main source through which the Myanmar military is buying weapons and military supplies – including parts for helicopter gunships – used to support its three-year civil war that has devastated the country and killed more than 5,000 civilians, the UN special rapporteur on human rights Tom Andrews said in a new report Wednesday.
Since seizing power in a coup in February 2021, the military has been fighting a deepening war against ethnic armed groups and people’s resistance forces across Myanmar. In recent months it has faced significant losses of territory and troops.
As it contends with widespread public opposition and an economic crisis that has sparked soaring levels of poverty, the junta has increased airstrikes and attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, displacing more than 3 million people.
The military’s brutal campaign of violence has prompted Western nations to impose wide-ranging sanctions on military leaders, family and cronies, state-owned companies, banks, and jet fuel suppliers.
“The junta, or State Administration Council (SAC), is counting on two primary resources from abroad: weapons and money,” Andrews said in the report.
The report, “Banking on the Death Trade: How Banks and Governments Enable the Military Junta in Myanmar,” found that 16 banks in seven countries have processed transactions linked to the military’s procurement in the past year.
Weapons, dual-use technologies, manufacturing equipment, and raw materials secured by the junta from abroad reached $253 million between April 2023 and March 2024, the report said.
“By relying on financial institutions that are willing to do business with Myanmar state-owned banks under its control, the junta has ready access to the financial services it needs to carry out systematic human rights violations, including aerial attacks on civilians,” Andrews said.
However, the volume of weapons and military supplies purchased by the junta through foreign banks has decreased by a third from 2023, with exports from Singapore dropping dramatically, according to the report.
“The good news is that the junta is increasingly isolated,” Andrews said. “The bad news is that the junta is circumventing sanctions and other measures by exploiting gaps in sanctions regimes, shifting financial institutions, and taking advantage of the failure of Member States to fully coordinate and enforce actions.”
The Thai connection
Singapore-based entities were Myanmar’s third largest source of weapons and military materials. But following a government investigation, the flow of weapons materials to Myanmar from Singapore-registered companies dropped by nearly 90% compared to the previous year.
In 2022, Singapore-based banks facilitated more than 70% of the junta’s purchases passing through the banking system. By 2023, that had dropped to under 20%, the report found.
Looking for other financial institutions, the junta found neighboring Thailand.
Between 2022 and 2023, exports of weapons and related materials from Thai-based entities more than doubled, from $60 million to nearly $130 million last year.
“Many SAC (junta) purchases previously made from Singapore-based entities, including parts for Mi-17 and Mi-35 helicopters used to conduct airstrikes on civilian targets, are now being sourced from Thailand,” the report said.
Siam Commercial Bank is among the Thai banks that have played a “crucial role” in the shift, the report found. In 2022, the bank facilitated just over $5 million in transactions relating to the military, by 2023 that figure ballooned to more than $100 million, according to the report.
“Many countries have been named and certainly these are countries where the majority of financial transactions in the region would pass through,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
“Our banking and financial institutions follow banking protocols as any major financial hub. So we will have to first establish the facts before considering any further steps.”
Andrews said it was “critical” that “financial institutions take their human rights obligations seriously and not facilitate the junta’s deadly transactions.”
In addition, sanctioning the networks supplying jet fuel to the junta and the military’s “go-to bank” Myanma Economic Bank, “could play a decisive role in helping to turn the tide in Myanmar and saving untold numbers of lives,” he said.
Bolivia’s President Luis Arce denounced the “irregular mobilization of certain units of the Bolivian military” in La Paz on Wednesday in a post on X amid claims that the army was mounting a coup. “You need to respect democracy,” he said.
Military tanks were reportedly positioned around a main square in La Paz where the national executive and legislative offices are, according to state media agency ABI. It is unclear why military units are in the Murillo Plaza and how many there are.
The former President Evo Morales, who like the incumbent is in Bolivia’s Movement to Socialism (MAS) party, said on X that a “coup d’état is brewing.” Morales also called on “the social movements of the countryside and the city to defend democracy.”
Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), a pan-American organization, Luis Almagro, condemned the mobilizations in the “most energetic way” on X, saying the “army must submit to the legitimately elected civil power.”
According to ABI, the military mobilization began around 2:30 p.m. local time.
Kenyan President William Ruto said Wednesday that he will not sign a controversial finance bill, backing down in the face of mass protests that swept the country and reportedly left at least 23 people dead.
“Having reflected on the continuing conversation regarding the content of the finance bill 2024, and listening keenly to the people of Kenya who have said loudly that they want nothing to do with this Finance Bill 2024, I concede, and therefore I will not sign the 2024 finance bill,” Ruto said during a television address Wednesday.
“The people have spoken,” Ruto said. “Following the passage of the bill, the country experienced widespread expression of dissatisfaction with the bill as passed, regrettably resulting in the loss of life, the destruction of property and desecration of constitutional institutions.”
Protesters in Kenya say they will go ahead with a “One Million People March” on Thursday despite Ruto accepting their key demand of scrapping the bill. A poster shared widely on social media calls on all generations to return to the streets across the country on Thursday and block roads leading to the capital Nairobi.
Some protesters have also called for people to occupy the State House in Nairobi.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken with Ruto since the clashes to urge restraint. According to a State Department readout of their call, Blinken “underscored the importance of security forces demonstrating restraint and refraining from violence and encouraged prompt investigations into allegations of human rights abuses.”
Kenya, a nation often praised for its stability, had seen escalating protests over the bill, which the government introduced to rein in public debt.
Last week, the government scrapped some tax increases, including a proposed 16% value-added tax on bread along with taxes on motor vehicles, vegetable oil and mobile money transfers. But the concessions were not enough to quell protests amid the rising cost of living.
On Tuesday they turned deadly when security forces fired teargas and live ammunition at protesters.
At least 23 people died in the violence, according to Kenya’s Police Reforms Working Group, (PRWG) a civil society organization.
The PRWG alleged in a statement published by Amnesty International Kenya that police targeted young, unarmed protesters outside the parliament, with the violence continuing into the night. They added that “reports show police shot several people in Githurai, Nairobi, one over 40 times — between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m., way after the protest ended.”
This was in contrast to details given by Ruto, who said in his speech that six people died.
“I send my condolences to the families of those who lost their loved ones in this very unfortunate manner,” Ruto added.
“There is need for us as a nation to pick up from here and go into the future,” Ruto said, adding that he would hold an engagement with the young people at the forefront of the protests to hear their ideas and proposals.
The Law Society of Kenya is calling for the resignation of Kenya’s inspector general of police and the Nairobi regional commander over officers allegedly shooting protesters.
The Law Society also said the police “abducted” several prominent social media users connected to the protests, and six people remain missing.
Ruto’s change of heart came as a surprise to some who observed his hardline stance just a day earlier.
During a nationwide address after the parliament was set alight, Ruto said the events on Tuesday were a grave threat to “national security” and that the conversation around the bill had been “hijacked by dangerous people.”
Kenyan analyst Herman Manyora said withdrawing the bill much earlier could have saved the lives lost on Tuesday.
The International Criminal Court on Wednesday convicted an al Qaeda-linked leader of crimes against humanity and war crimes that took place in Timbuktu, northern Mali.
Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud, who was a senior member of the Islamic Police, was recruited by al Qaeda leaders, the ICC said in a statement.
The Islamic Police played a “pivotal role” in the system that al Qaeda, alongside Islamist group Ansar Dine, put in place to commit crimes against humanity and war crimes in Timbuktu between April 2012 and May 2013, the ICC said.
Al Hassan was convicted by majority of directly committing, contributing to, or aiding and abetting crimes against humanity of torture and war crimes of torture and outrages upon personal dignity, the ICC confirmed.
The court, in the Dutch city of The Hague, acquitted him of crimes related to rape, sexual slavery, forced marriage and attacking protected objects due to insufficient evidence that he was responsible, the statement said.
The ICC said that 2,196 victims participated in the trial proceedings. Across 195 hearings, 7,896 documents were recorded and 13,275 items of evidence were submitted, the court said.
Al Hassan will remain in detention until he is sentenced in a separate hearing. Parties have 30 days to appeal the conviction.
They carved out a large portion of the region and began instituting their own laws.
They banned music, smoking, drinking and watching sports on television, and destroyed historic tombs and shrines in the north.
Public executions, amputations, floggings and other inhumane punishments were also common, the United Nations said at the time.
Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez has been sentenced to 45 years in prison and given an $8 million fine by a US judge for drug trafficking offenses.
He has previously denied the charges against him and at his sentencing on Wednesday insisted that he is innocent and was “wrongly and unjustly accused.”
In March, a jury in New York found Hernandez guilty on three drug trafficking charges after a two-week trial in Manhattan federal court. He denied the charges.
He was extradited from Honduras after the US Department of Justice filed three drug-trafficking and firearms related charges against him in 2022.
Prosecutors had accused Hernández, 55, of conspiring with drug cartels during his tenure as they moved more than 400 tons of cocaine through Honduras toward the United States.
In exchange, prosecutors said, Hernández received millions of dollars in bribes that he used to fuel his rise in Honduran politics.
Hernández was president of Honduras from 2014 until 2022. During his years in office, he “protected and enriched the drug traffickers in his inner circle,” the Justice Department said, citing his use of executive power to support extraditions to the US of certain drug traffickers “who threatened his grip on power” while “promising drug traffickers who paid him and followed his instructions that they would remain in Honduras.”
Prosecutors also said that members of the conspiracy in which Hernández participated relied on the Honduran National Police to protect cocaine shipments as they moved through the country.
In a statement, US Attorney General Merrick Garland said Hernández “abused his position as president of Honduras to operate the country as a narco-state where violent drug traffickers were allowed to operate with virtual impunity, and the people of Honduras and the United States were forced to suffer the consequences.”
Beside a desk scattered with soldering pieces, loose wires and electronic parts, Choi’s computer screen tracks wind conditions and the GPS location of some unlikely parcels: massive “smart” balloons he has sent floating into North Korea.
For many years, South Korean activists and North Korean defectors have sent balloons to the North, loaded with propaganda material criticizing dictator Kim Jong Un and USB sticks filled with K-pop songs and South Korean television shows – all strictly prohibited in the impoverished, highly isolated nation.
In response, North Korean authorities have sent more than 1,000 balloons toward the South since May carrying trash, waste and worms – fueling tensions as Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korea’s leader, warned of “trouble” ahead.
In 2020, South Korea passed a law criminalizing the sending of anti-North Korean propaganda leaflets over the border as the previous liberal government in Seoul pushed for engagement with Pyongyang.
But many campaigners defied the ruling before it was struck down by a court last year, which called the law an excessive restriction on free speech, in response to a complaint filed by North Korean defector-activists in the South.
Choi, co-founder of the Committee for Reforming and Opening North Korea, is among the North Korean defectors who have vowed to continue sending balloons to their homeland.
The balloons assembled by Choi’s group from their Seoul apartment base are a step up from rudimentary balloons that randomly scatter their contents when they crash or pop.
Fitted with GPS trackers, the activists can monitor these next generation “smart” balloons in real time on journeys that often span hundreds of kilometers. The group once tracked one of its balloons that drifted all the way to China, according to its data.
The group’s oblong-shaped balloons are about 12 to 13 meters (about 40 to 42 feet) long, made of plastic and filled with hydrogen, Choi said. They carefully chose the plastic’s thickness so it can both endure the wind and allow some hydrogen to naturally leak through, helping control the balloons’ altitude, he added.
The sensors and small circuit boards attached to the balloons help the balloons travel at a certain altitude and for a certain distance. “If the balloons float too high over 4,000 meters, the dispenser won’t work properly so we keep an extra bag of leaflets to drop when it reaches too high in altitude,” Choi said. “It’s programmed to release the hydrogen gas depending on the altitude.”
“I believe North Korea can change when the deification of Kim Jong Un is cracked, and sending these smart balloons is the way to achieve that,” Choi added.
“I feel very proud that we have contributed to dismantling the idolization of Kim Jong Un.”
3D-printed parts
The smart balloons sent by Choi’s group carry a number of different payloads, including some that are automated.
In one version, the balloons carry a small, makeshift loudspeaker that looks like a camping lantern, held in place by zip ties and glue. Attached to a cushion, battery pack and a parachute, it blares propaganda as it floats to the ground, with one message declaring: “North Korea can survive only if the Workers’ Party is abolished.”
The balloons are sometimes fitted with an automated flyer-dispensing device. They can carry about 1,500 propaganda leaflets – which the dispenser spits out rapidly with the help of a timer and an altitude-adjusting device.
“We devised a method to disperse the leaflets over a large area, covering 50 to 300 kilometers (about 31 to 186 miles), making it very difficult for North Korean authorities to collect them all,” Choi said. “With our system, we can control the leaflets to fall every 300 meters or every kilometer, making sure more people can see them.”
These features allow the group more control over their devices than the typical balloons used by other activists. For example, smart balloons are designed to begin spitting out leaflets at specific points based on their wind speed and direction, Choi said – purportedly allowing them to distribute within target areas. They can also control the frequency of the leaflets’ distribution.
While Choi buys some parts for the devices, he uses 3D printers to make the others. He credits his engineering studies at a North Korean university before his escape to the South – and YouTube videos and the rest of his group – for helping him improve upon the existing balloons being sent North, before setting up the organization in 2013.
And this isn’t his full-time job; he works elsewhere in the daytime, comes to the apartment after work, makes 3D-printed parts, then assembles them for up to six hours a day. Each smart balloon costs about $700 to make, he said.
Choi’s motivation, he said, is his family still living in North Korea. And he bristled at those in South Korea who have urged the activist groups to stop.
“To those who criticize our activities, it’s like saying, ‘Let’s help maintain the dictatorship in South Korea,’” he said, referring to decades of authoritarianism in Seoul before the South’s transition to democracy in the 1980s.
Rising tensions
The balloon feud has seen tensions heighten between the two Koreas, which technically remain at war – an armistice ended the Korean War that split the peninsula in 1953 but no formal peace treaty was ever signed.
Relations between the two countries thawed somewhat in 2017 and 2018, allowing some South Korean elements, including parts of its pop culture, to seep into the hermit nation.
But the situation in North Korea deteriorated in the following years as leader Kim ramped up weapons testing in defiance of United Nations sanctions and diplomatic talks fell apart, prompting strict rules to snap back into place in the North.
Meanwhile, both nations are drawing closer to their respective partners – with North Korea recently signing a defense agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin and South Korea stepping up cooperation with Japan and the United States.
On Tuesday, after South Korea detected the latest batch of 350 trash balloons from North Korea, the country’s military warned it could restart loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts at the border – something it hasn’t done since 2018.
In past years, Seoul has used giant speakers to play propaganda and music across the heavily militarized border – including news reports and K-pop group Big Bang’s hit song “Bang Bang Bang.”
“Our military is ready to immediately start anti-North Korea propaganda broadcasts and will operate with flexibility according to the strategical and operational situation,” said South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, adding that whether it resumes the loudspeakers is “up to North Korea’s actions.”
Younis lays disorientated on a green mattress in Nasser Hospital, in southern Gaza. His long brown eyelashes rest delicately on his pale sunken face, as he drifts in and out of sleep.
The 9-year-old Palestinian boy lies in his mother’s arms, clearly wasted from severe malnutrition and suffering from dehydration. His blue jogging bottoms hang off his emaciated legs, as his tiny ribcage protrudes from his billowy orange T-shirt.
Two months ago, the family was forced to flee the southern city of Rafah as Israel ramped up its attacks there. These days, they struggle to survive, living along the polluted coastline of Asda’a — near the Al-Mawasi tent camp — where they cannot find enough food, water, or even shade from the Gaza heat.
“We have to keep moving from one area to the other because of the war and the invasion… Life is difficult,” his mother said. “We don’t even have a tent over our heads.”
And as Israel continues its siege on Gaza, preventing aid groups getting enough food into the enclave, parents say they have no choice but to watch their children starve to death. More than eight months of bombardment has shredded infrastructure, wiped out communities and laid waste to entire neighborhoods. Sanitation systems — already stressed by water shortages from extreme heat — have been heavily destroyed, according to the UN, diminishing access to clean water.
A report published Tuesday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which assesses global food insecurity and malnutrition, warned that almost all of Gaza will face famine within the next three months.
The UN’s food agency earlier warned that southern Gaza could soon see the same “catastrophic levels of hunger” recorded previously in the north, where Israel concentrated its military offensive in the early days of the war.
At least 34 children have already died of malnutrition in Gaza, the government media office reported on June 22. The true number could be higher, as limited access to Gaza has impeded aid agencies’ efforts to fully assess the crisis there. More than 50,000 children require treatment for acute malnutrition, the UN’s agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) said earlier this month.
Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza after the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on southern Israel, in which at least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others were abducted.
Israeli attacks in Gaza have since killed 37,658 Palestinians and injured another 86,237 people, according to Gaza health officials.
Severe water shortages
As Younis suffers in his mother’s arms in Gaza’s south, children in the north have been dealing with food shortages even longer. In the Jabalya refugee camp, they queue at a water truck, beads of sweat rolling down their faces, as they weave through the rubble-filled streets.
Dozens of other Gazans crowd together to access water as aid workers nearby distribute thick, steaming red soup from large saucepans.
Israel insists there is “no limit” on the amount of aid that can enter Gaza, but its inspection regime on trucks, restrictions on land routes and increased bombardment means relief is barely trickling in. Even when aid enters the besieged territory, the risk of hungry Palestinians scrambling over convoys hampers distribution efforts. UN Secretary General António Guterres recently warned the absence of police authorities in Gaza during the conflict had led to “total lawlessness.”
Earlier this year, the UN warned that Israel is creating an “entirely man-made disaster” in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied allegations by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor that he has used “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.”
“The only water we have is what we get as aid. People are suffering as a result, it is indescribable,” said one civilian named Hassan Kalash. “We are ill and don’t have the strength to transport the water… The water pipe is broken. We do not have water infrastructure.”
The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has accused Israeli authorities of obstructing humanitarian access to northern Gaza. In the first three weeks of June, 36 trucks carrying aid — which were facilitated by Israel — were allowed to reach Gaza, while another 35 were either denied access, impeded or canceled due to logistical, operational or security reasons.
The impact on the ground is visceral. In Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza, 5-year-old Razan wears a gold ring on her finger, which is covered in red sores. The Palestinian girl is sprawled on a trolley in the central Gaza facility, her grey eyes weary with exhaustion.
‘Waiting for them to die, one by one’
Newborn babies and pregnant women are among the most at risk of malnutrition and dehydration in Gaza, according to aid agencies and health workers. Undernourished mothers are more likely to give birth prematurely, with newborns dying because they weigh too little.
At the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, doctors were unable to keep baby Amal alive just four days after her birth.
“Everyone in these beds today is at risk of dying. We are waiting for them to die one by one,” he added, his voice quivering with grief. “We have no life.”
Around 250 patients are receiving treatment for malnutrition at the hospital, and there are only two functioning stabilization centers for severely malnourished children in Gaza, OCHA reported earlier this month, endangering almost 3,000 children, who were receiving treatment for acute malnutrition in the south prior to the military escalation in Rafah.
As hunger worsens and parts of the enclave hurtle towards widespread famine, aid agencies have repeatedly called for the opening of land crossings into Gaza, which they say are the most effective way of getting relief into the strip. A US-built floating pier designed to bring in aid in by sea has been beset by problems — from unfavorable sea conditions to distribution issues once the aid ins transferred on land — failing to make a meaningful difference to the crisis.
“My son will not be able to survive this,” he said. “I call on the American president Joe Biden… to intervene,” added Madi, “to save this child who has nothing at all to do with any political conflict.”
But just days later, the boy died. With other young children to provide for, Madi’s life as a parent is full of stress.
“It’s very hard to feed a family of 10 in these difficult times.”
The outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte will become the next NATO secretary general, the alliance said Wednesday.
His appointment comes after Romanian President Klaus Iohannis – his only rival for the position – announced last week that he had withdrawn from the running.
The term of current secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, runs out on October 1.
Rutte will inherit a NATO that is racing to bolster its own security while also supporting Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion. The alliance is walking a tightrope of rearming and increasing military spending while avoiding provoking Moscow and escalating what is already the deadliest war on European soil in decades.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange walked free for the first time in 12 years after a US judge signed off on his unexpected plea deal on Wednesday morning.
Assange walked out of the courtroom as a free man into the bright Saipan sunshine, raising one hand to a gaggle of the world’s press before departing by car for the airport where he caught a flight to the Australian capital Canberra.
Speaking outside the court, Assange’s US lawyer Barry Pollack said he had “suffered tremendously in his fight for free speech and freedom of the press.”
“The prosecution of Julian Assange is unprecedented in the 100 years of the Espionage Act,” Pollack told reporters. “Mr. Assange revealed truthful, newsworthy information … We firmly believe that Mr. Assange never should have been charged under the Espionage Act and engaged in (an) exercise that journalists engage in every day.”
In a stunning turn of events, the 52-year-old Australian was released from a high-security prison in London on Monday afternoon and had already boarded a private jet to leave the United Kingdom before the world even knew of his agreement with the US government.
He appeared in a US courtroom on the Northern Mariana Islands to formalize the agreement, officially pleading guilty to conspiring unlawfully to obtain and disseminate classified information over his alleged role in one of the largest breaches of classified material in US military history.
“I am, in fact, guilty of the charge,” Assange told the court in Saipan.
The remote Pacific island chain is a US territory, located around 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles) west of Hawaii.
Assange – who has long held a deep mistrust of the US, even going so far as accusing it of allegedly plotting his assassination – was hesitant about stepping foot in the continental US, and so prosecutors asked for all proceedings to take place in a day in a US federal court based in Saipan, the largest island and capital of the Northern Mariana Islands.
Justice Department prosecutors also said the court on the islands made logistical sense as it is closer to Australia, where Assange will ultimately travel to following the conclusion of his legal battle.
Kevin Rudd, Australia’s Ambassador to Washington and former prime minister who helped facilitate negotiations with the US, watched proceedings in the courtroom.
‘I hope there will be some peace restored’
At the start of the plea deal hearing the judge reminded Assange that he was back in the United States and that this court was the “smallest, youngest, and furthest from nation’s capital.” Assange looked relaxed in the courtroom, wearing a black jacket and brown tie, while next to his attorneys.
Asked by the judge, Honorable Ramona Manglona, to describe what he had done to be charged, Assange said: “Working as a journalist, I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified in order to publish that information. I believe that the First Amendment protected that activity… I believe the First Amendment and the Espionage Act are in contradiction with each other, but I accept that it would be difficult to win such a case given all these circumstances.”
In her sentencing, the judge said Assange was entitled to a credit of time served for his incarceration at a British prison.
“It appears that your 62 months imprisonment is fair and reasonable,” Manglona said. “You will be able to walk out of this courtroom a free man. I hope there will be some peace restored.”
The judge told Assange that “timing matters” and she would have been less inclined to accept a plea 10 years ago. She also said there was no personal victim in this case — Assange’s action did not lead to any known physical injury.
For years, the US argued that the self-appointed champion of free speech endangered lives and posed a threat to national security.
Following his release, the US Department of Justice said in a statement that Assange is barred from returning to the US without permission, “pursuant to the plea agreement.”
Assange and his whistleblower website rose to global prominence in 2010 after a string of leaks from former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The website posted a video showing a US military helicopter firing on and killing two journalists and several Iraqi civilians in 2007. Several months later, it disclosed more than 90,000 classified Afghan war documents dating back to 2004.
Later in 2010, he was wanted in Sweden to answer questions over allegations of sexual assault that had emerged.
Two years later, Assange sought political asylum within the Ecuadorian embassy in west London. He remained there for almost seven years until the Metropolitan Police entered his safe haven in 2019 acting on an extradition warrant from the US Justice Department. British officers moved in after Ecuador withdrew his asylum and invited authorities into the embassy, citing Assange’s bad behavior.
He had originally been facing 18 criminal charges relating to his organization’s release of massive troves of sensitive information into the public domain.
Instead, as part of the agreement brokered with the Justice Department, Assange entered a guilty plea to a single criminal charge.
His punishment was 62 months in prison, but he will not spend any time behind bars in the US, as the sentence equates to the five years he fought extradition while incarcerated at London’s Belmarsh prison.
The deal brokered with the US is the final act of a 14-year legal drama that has spanned continents, though it was not immediately clear why it reached a resolution now.
In pictures: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
Australian officials have been pushing diplomatic angles for some time. It was widely thought that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had raised Assange’s case when he visited the White House last October.
Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, the Australian leader said he was “pleased that (Assange) was on his way home to Australia to reunite with his family.”
“This outcome has been the product of careful, patient and determined work,” Albanese said, adding “this is what standing up for Australians around the world looks like.”
“Regardless of your views about his activities and they will be varied, Mr. Assange’s case has dragged on for too long. I have said repeatedly that there was nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration,” Albanese said.
US President Joe Biden had in recent months alluded to a possible deal pushed by Australian government officials to return Assange to Australia. However, the administration distanced itself from the developments on Tuesday.
ASSANGE: KEY MOMENTS
2006: Julian Assange founds whistleblowing website, WikiLeaks. Apr 2010: WikiLeaks posts video showing a US helicopter killing civilians in Iraq in 2007. Jul 2010: WikiLeaks posts classified documents related to the Afghanistan war. Aug 2010: Sweden launches probe of Assange after claims of sexual assault emerge, which he denies. Jun 2012: Assange enters Ecuadorian embassy in London seeking political asylum. Apr 2019: British police arrest Assange on behalf of the US, requests his extradition after Ecuador withdraws his asylum. Jun 2022: UK home secretary signs his extradition order, which he later appeals. May 2024: Assange wins permission to bring new extradition appeal. Jun 2024: Assange strikes US plea deal allowing him to leave UK prison and return to Australia.
Regardless, Assange’s wife, Stella, said Tuesday that she was “elated” at the news her husband was free from Belmarsh.
“Frankly, it’s just incredible. I don’t know. It kind of feels like it’s not real,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today program. She spoke from Australia, where she flew with their two children on Sunday morning before Assange’s release. She said she had not yet told their young children why they had traveled to their father’s homeland.
He said Assange is “excited to be a free man again” and looking forward to doing normal things he hasn’t been able to do after being held in a maximum-security prison for the last five years. He said his brother enjoys Australian bird watching, swimming in the ocean and sharing a meal with his wife and children.
“The work that WikiLeaks and the work that Julian did – it’s historical now,” Shipton said.
“The collateral murder video that exposed Reuters journalists being killed by a helicopter gunship in Baghdad. I think those are historical moments, historical publications that went all around the world, torture in Guantanamo Bay, as well as corruption in the banking system, toxic waste dumping. This is a legacy of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange,” he added.
Once the WikiLeaks founder touches down in Australia, one thing on his to-do list will be paying off his government for the ride home. Assange will owe $520,000 for the charter flight, according to the international campaign that called for his release.
To cover the purported expenses as well as other funds for his recovery, the campaign has launched an appeal, asking supporters for donations.