Julian Assange has entered a plea deal with the US government and is expected to be freed following a hearing in the US Federal Court in Saipan, the Northern Mariana Islands.
Assange’s convoluted legal woes have been ongoing since 2010 and involve numerous appeals, charges and other proceedings in the United Kingdom, Sweden and the United States. This timeline tracks the major events that have led to his plea deal.
You may have noticed that 2010 has a number of events bunched together. In 2010, WikiLeaks published two large troves of classified US military documents and a video of a helicopter attack on journalists in Iraq. With nearly half a million files detailing troubling allegations of misdeeds by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan, the leaks prompted a swift response from the US government.
Chelsea Manning was arrested within months of the leak after a hacker friend reported her. Shortly after Manning’s arrest, Sweden brought charges of rape and molestation against Assange. After initially surrendering to UK authorities, Assange broke bail and claimed asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He remained there until 2019 when his asylum was suddenly revoked.