Wikileaks’s Assange Will Plead Guilty in Deal With American Prosecutors and Return to Australia

He will appear in federal court in the Mariana Islands, an American commonwealth in the Western Pacific, to plead guilty to a felony violation of the Espionage Act.

AP/Frank Augstein, file
Julian Assange outside the Ecuadorian embassy at London, May 19, 2017. AP/Frank Augstein, file

WASHINGTON — Wikileaks founder Julian Assange will plead guilty to a felony charge in a deal with the Justice Department that will resolve a long-running legal saga that spanned multiple continents and centered on the publication of a trove of classified documents, according to court papers filed late Monday

Mr. Assange is scheduled to appear in the federal court in the Mariana Islands, an American commonwealth in the Western Pacific, to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information, the Justice Department said in a letter filed in court.

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