Julian Assange’s wife speaks of elation over plea deal

Julian’s Assange’s wife has spoken of her elation that the WikiLeaks founder has been released from Belmarsh prison in London and will soon be a “free man” under a deal in which he will plead guilty to violating US espionage law.

Speaking from Australia, where she flew on Sunday to prepare her family’s new life, Stella Assange, a human rights lawyer, said she had not yet told the couple’s two young sons about their father’s release from incarceration.

She said: “We weren’t really sure until the last 24 hours that it was actually happening and, well, we were talking about [it]; I don’t know what he needed to do and take from his cell, and I also had to pack things up and head out to Australia 24 hours before he left. So it’s just been non-stop for the past, I think, 72 hours.”

Assange, 52, was released from Belmarsh on Monday and boarded a flight from Stansted that evening in order to travel to a hearing on the island of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, which is US territory.

There, he is due to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents, according to filings in the island’s district court.