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A row has broken out following the release of Julian Assange from Belmarsh Prison after the WikiLeaks founder reached a plea deal with the US over the spy charges that have dogged him for more than a decade.
Assange, 52, was driven from the London prison to Stansted Airport yesterday, where he boarded a private jet that landed in Bangkok, Thailand, on Tuesday morning.
He will continue his journey to the Northern Mariana Islands, a tiny US-controlled territory in the south Pacific, where he is expected to plead guilty to a single espionage charge which will pave the way for him to return to his native Australia as a free man.
It's understood prosecutors have recommended a prison sentence of 62 months in custody in return for the guilty plea but Assange would not spend any time in a US prison because of the five years he spent jailed in the UK.
His wife Stella - who said she is feeling a 'whirlwind of emotion' - has revealed they are seeking a pardon following the 'outrageous' 14-year case.
The release of Assange has divided politicians, with Australia's former foreign secretary Alexander Downer declaring: 'Just because he's Australian doesn't mean he's a good bloke.'
In stark contrast, Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he was looking forward to welcoming Assange 'home'.
Assange has been a wanted man since 2010 when WikiLeaks released hundreds of thousands of classified US military documents on Washington's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - the largest security breaches of their kind in US military history - along with swathes of diplomatic cables.
In 2012, as authorities circled him for that and over 'credible and reliable' sex crime allegations from a woman in Sweden, he fled into London's Ecuadorian embassy where he remained for seven years in often farcical circumstances.
After falling out with the South American nation's rulers he was dragged out of his bolthole in 2019 and locked up in Belmarsh while the US attempted to extradite him.
But that legal process ended abruptly yesterday, and WikiLeaks broke the news with a post on X reading: 'Julian Assange is free!'
Rest of Story here
Assange, 52, was driven from the London prison to Stansted Airport yesterday, where he boarded a private jet that landed in Bangkok, Thailand, on Tuesday morning.
He will continue his journey to the Northern Mariana Islands, a tiny US-controlled territory in the south Pacific, where he is expected to plead guilty to a single espionage charge which will pave the way for him to return to his native Australia as a free man.
It's understood prosecutors have recommended a prison sentence of 62 months in custody in return for the guilty plea but Assange would not spend any time in a US prison because of the five years he spent jailed in the UK.
His wife Stella - who said she is feeling a 'whirlwind of emotion' - has revealed they are seeking a pardon following the 'outrageous' 14-year case.
The release of Assange has divided politicians, with Australia's former foreign secretary Alexander Downer declaring: 'Just because he's Australian doesn't mean he's a good bloke.'
In stark contrast, Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he was looking forward to welcoming Assange 'home'.
Assange has been a wanted man since 2010 when WikiLeaks released hundreds of thousands of classified US military documents on Washington's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - the largest security breaches of their kind in US military history - along with swathes of diplomatic cables.
In 2012, as authorities circled him for that and over 'credible and reliable' sex crime allegations from a woman in Sweden, he fled into London's Ecuadorian embassy where he remained for seven years in often farcical circumstances.
After falling out with the South American nation's rulers he was dragged out of his bolthole in 2019 and locked up in Belmarsh while the US attempted to extradite him.
But that legal process ended abruptly yesterday, and WikiLeaks broke the news with a post on X reading: 'Julian Assange is free!'
Rest of Story here
