Wikileaks Confirms Founder’s Arrival on US Territory at Saipan Island

"Julian Assange has arrived on US territory at Saipan Island to formalize the plea deal that should never have had to happen," Wikileaks said

Julian Assange AP Photo/Frank Augstein, File

© AP Photo/Frank Augstein, File

NEW YORK, June 26. /TASS/. Wikileaks has confirmed its founder Julian Assange’s arrival in Saipan, an island in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

"Julian Assange has arrived on US territory at Saipan Island to formalize the plea deal that should never have had to happen," Wikileaks said on the X social media platform.

According to data from Flightradar24, a plane presumably carrying Assange earlier landed on Saipan.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s office said that the Wikileaks founder was expected to plead guilty to some counts and be sentenced to 62 months of time already served, which would make it possible for him to walk free and return to Australia.

The court hearing is set to take place on Saipan at 9:00 a.m. local time on June 26 (11:00 p.m. GMT on June 25).

In 2019, Assange was placed in Britain's Belmarsh prison after being removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London. For more than five years, Washington has been seeking the extradition of the WikiLeaks founder from Britain to the United States, where he is accused of crimes related to the largest case of disclosure of classified information in American history.