Whistleblower Julian Assange freed from UK prison after striking plea deal with US
London: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has reached an agreement to plead guilty to revealing military secrets in a US court in exchange for his freedom, ending a protracted legal battle that has spanned over a decade. According to court documents released Monday night, Assange will plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defense information.
Assange, who has been in custody in Britain, is scheduled to appear in a US court in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific, later this week. WikiLeaks confirmed early Tuesday morning that "Julian Assange is free" and had left the UK.
Under the plea agreement, Assange is expected to be sentenced to 62 months in prison. With credit for the five years he has already served in a high-security British prison, he could soon return to his native Australia.
Assange, now 52, was initially sought by Washington for publishing hundreds of thousands of secret US documents in 2010 as the head of WikiLeaks. His release of military secrets about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan garnered him both praise as a champion of free speech and criticism for endangering US national security and intelligence sources.
The legal battle began with Assange's 2019 indictment by a US federal grand jury on 18 counts related to the publication of national security documents. His case took a dramatic turn when the British government approved his extradition in June 2022, a decision Assange appealed.
After spending seven years in Ecuador's London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden over now-dropped sexual assault accusations, Assange was arrested and has since been detained in London's Belmarsh prison.
The plea deal's announcement comes just two weeks before Assange was scheduled to appeal the UK ruling approving his extradition to the US. His appeal was set to address whether he would receive First Amendment protections as a foreigner on trial in America.
The plea deal's conclusion was anticipated amid increasing pressure on President Joe Biden to drop the case. In February, the Australian government formally requested an end to the legal proceedings against Assange, a plea Biden said he would consider.
This plea bargain marks the end of nearly 14 years of legal turmoil for Assange, who has been both a hero to free speech advocates and a controversial figure accused of jeopardizing US national security.
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Hyderabad woman commits suicide after allegedly getting injected with HIV-infected blood by relative
Hyderabad: A 22-year-old woman committed suicide in Hyderabad about a month after a relative allegedly injected her with HIV-infected blood after she rejected a marriage proposal, police said.
The woman is identified as Ramani. She was found dead at her grandmother's home in Annojiguda on Friday morning, according to The News Minute.
According to police, the accused, a 24-year-old man related to the victim, had been in a relationship with her. Initially their families had agreed to their marriage but the proposal was later withdrawn after medical tests confirmed that the man was HIV positive.
According to investigators, the accused allegedly injected his own blood into the woman at her home on March 11, after his marriage proposal was refused. Police said he obtained a syringe and committed the act when she was alone, allegedly with the intent of forcing her into marriage.
The incident was discovered when the woman told her relatives and was sent to a medical checkup. The accused was detained in March and put in judicial prison on allegations including attempted murder.
Police said a suicide note was recovered from the scene in which the woman mentioned being distressed by the manner in which the incident was discussed on social media. Family members stated that she had been undergoing emotional distress and had developed health complications following the assault.
