The US Department of Justice is discussing with Julian Assange's lawyers the possibility of mitigating the charges in exchange for their confession, the Wall Street Journal reports. “The Department of Justice is considering allowing Julian Assange to plead guilty in exchange for a reduced charge of breaching classified information rules. "Ministry officials and Assange's lawyers have held preliminary discussions in recent months about what a deal might look like," the statement read.
According to the publication, the confessions of the founder of "Wikileaks" can be arranged remotely - without extradition from the UK. At the same time, the five years spent in prison will be counted towards the American sentence, which is unlikely to significantly increase the prison term if the case is reclassified, the article notes.
Negotiations are reportedly ongoing, but any deal must be approved by the ministry's senior leadership. According to Barry Pollack, one of Assange's lawyers, at this stage there is "no indication that the US federal government is ready to negotiate," the paper said.
Assange has been fighting a legal battle with the British government for years to avoid extradition to the US, and the court is currently considering whether to allow him a final appeal. After he was charged in 2019, British police officers arrested him and he has been in prison in London ever since.
Assange is awaiting a decision after the latest hearing in London to extradite him to the US after more than 13 years of legal battles, first as a prisoner in the Ecuadorian embassy and then as a prisoner in a maximum-security British prison. US authorities intend to prosecute the Australian under the Espionage Act for the release of a series of classified documents, the contents of which have sparked scandals related to the actions of US troops in Iraq, US espionage against allied countries and the regularity of the 2016 US Democratic primary election.
According to the American authorities, the publication of the documents poses a threat to the security of the personnel of the American intelligence services. However, many see Assange as a symbol of freedom of speech and the media, and also as a journalist who was persecuted for exposing alleged war crimes.
The legal battles against Assange began in 2010 when he was arrested in Britain for alleged sexual assault based on an arrest warrant issued by a court in Stockholm. As soon as he was released on bail in December of that year, Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, claiming that the charges against him were a pretext for extradition to the United States. The rape charges were soon dropped, but Assange spent the next seven years in the embassy before British authorities arrested him on charges of violating the terms of a suspended sentence he received in 2010. Since then, Assange has been in Britain's notorious Belmarsh prison. During his time in prison, he married his former lawyer, Stella Morris. British authorities approved Assange's extradition to the United States in 2022 after a judge initially objected on the grounds of his precarious health and perceived risk of suicide. /BGNES
