Julian Assange spent more than five years in a 2×3 meter cell, isolated 23 hours a day before his release on bail, WikiLeaks said in a statement on Tuesday.
The WikiLeaks cofounder was released on Monday after being detained for 1901 days, from April 2019 until June 2024, in the UK’s Belmarsh maximum-security prison during a yearslong legal fight over his potential extradition to the US.
Assange was arrested in the UK in 2019 for breaching bail conditions after seeking asylum in Ecuador’s London Embassy to avoid extradition.
He was facing various charges, including those related to his role in publishing classified US documents provided by Chelsea Manning.
On Monday, the High Court of London granted Assange bail, the WikiLeaks statement said, allowing him to board a plane at 5 p.m. local time and leave the UK.
Assange’s release was the result of a global campaign that “created the space for a long period of negotiations with the US Department of Justice, leading to a deal that has not yet been formally finalized,” the statement continued.
According to court documents published on Tuesday by the United States District Court For The Northern Mariana Islands, Assange was charged under the Espionage Act with conspiring to obtain and disclose classified national defense documents.
US prosecutors anticipate that he will enter a guilty plea during a court hearing in the Northern Mariana Islands scheduled for Wednesday at 9 a.m. local time, according to a letter from Justice Department official Matthew McKenzie.
Britain’s ‘Guantánamo Bay’
Before his release, Assange spent half a decade detained in a prison once dubbed the UK’s “Guantánamo Bay.”
Belmarsh Prison, located in southeast London, gained prominence in the early 2000s for detaining terror suspects without charge or trial.
Nine foreign nationals were detained in December 2001 and held in prison without knowing why under post-9/11 anti-terrorism legislation, according to a 2004 BBC News article.
The nine men were kept in their cells for up to 22 hours a day without access to the evidence collected against them, the outlet reported.
As a result, the prison earned the epithet ‘Britain’s Guantánamo Bay.’
Judges ruled in 2004 that the indefinite detention of foreign prisoners in Belmarsh without trial under anti-terrorism legislation was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
Annual independent inspections of the Belmarsh prison have been conducted since 2003.
In 2022, inspectors returning to the prison said they were “encouraged” to see progress had been made since their last inspection in 2021, with reduced levels of violence and more time out of cell for prisoners.
However, the latest report by the Independent Monitoring Boards in 2023 found that a quarter of prisoners spent up to 22 hours a day locked in their cells.
As part of the plea agreement, Assange is expected to plead guilty to one count, with a proposed sentence of time served.
The US will then withdraw its extradition request, and he will be able to return home to Australia a free man.
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