WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is set to accept a plea deal in his espionage trial with the U.S. justice department that will leave him free to return home to Australia after over a decade in exile.
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00:00Ending a decade-long legal battle, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is en route to a U.S.
00:06court in the Northern Mariana Islands, where he is expected to plead guilty to a single
00:11criminal charge under the U.S. Espionage Act.
00:17He reached a plea deal with the U.S. Justice Department after being held for five years
00:21in prison in the U.K.
00:23Assange originally faced 18 charges of espionage for releasing hundreds of thousands of confidential
00:29documents related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
00:33Under the deal, Assange's detention in the U.K. will equal a 62-month sentence served,
00:39leaving him free to return home to Australia.
00:41Regardless of the views that people have about Mr. Assange's activities, the case has dragged
00:47on for too long.
00:49There's nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration, and we want him brought home
00:54to Australia.
00:58His legal battle sparked worldwide attention.
01:00He maintains the leaks were meant to hold governments accountable for their actions
01:04and raise awareness of human rights abuses.
01:07He found support among journalists and rights groups, who said the U.S. court case threatened
01:12press freedom.
01:13The cost to Julian, of course, has been to be deprived of freedom for all these years
01:20in the battle for journalistic freedom, freedom to publish, foundation of democracy.
01:28In a statement, the Committee to Protect Journalists says that the plea deal set a
01:32harmful legal precedent by opening the way for journalists to be tried under the Espionage
01:36Act if they receive classified material from whistleblowers.
01:42Chelsea Manning, the U.S. Army intelligence analyst who supplied the documents to Assange
01:47and WikiLeaks, was sentenced to 35 years in prison in 2013.
01:52To avoid a similar fate, Assange went on a self-imposed exile, seeking asylum at the
01:56Ecuadorian embassy in London before being detained by the British government.
02:01Now, after over a decade in legal limbo, Assange is a step closer to freedom.
02:06Once he's faced this U.S. court in the Northern Mariana Islands, he'll get to go home and
02:11reunite with his wife and two children, determined, his family says, to continue his fight for
02:16truth and justice.
02:18Dolphine Chen and Tiffany Wong for Taiwan Plus.