Julian Assange: A Potential Plea Deal to End a Fourteen-Year Legal Battle

The case of Julian Assange continues to be a topic of discussion. According to 'The Wall Street Journal', the United States Department of Justice is considering allowing the WikiLeaks co-founder to plead guilty to a "lesser" charge related to the illegal distribution of classified materials, opening the door to an agreement that would end a fourteen-year legal battle. Assange 'is not well', the WikiLeaks co-founder absent at the final appeal hearing against extradition to the USA. In prison in London since 2019, Julian Assange has been fighting a long legal battle with the British government for years to avoid extradition to the United States and to face trial for having published thousands of classified military documents starting from 2010. A trial, this, that could now see a twist. According to 'The Wall Street Journal', officials from the Department of Justice and Assange's lawyers have had some discussions in recent months about a possible plea deal or a potential softening of the situation. However, this agreement has not yet been confirmed either by Assange's lawyer Barry Pollack or by the American Department. If the deal were to go through and if the prosecutors were to allow Assange to plead to the U.S. charge of "mishandling of classified documents", the offense of the WikiLeaks co-founder would be lesser, and this would allow the 52-year-old Australian to avoid more time in prison. The years spent behind bars in London would count towards any sentence in the United States, and would allow Assange to leave prison shortly after signing the agreement. This hypothesis will be examined in the coming weeks by the British High Court, and could thus end a fourteen-year legal battle.