Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, has agreed to a plea deal with the U.S. Department of Justice to avoid further detention in the U.S. The deal comes after Assange spent five years in a British prison fighting extradition to the U.S. and nearly seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden. Assange will be sentenced to time served, equivalent to the 62 months he has spent in prison in the U.K.

Assange was charged with one count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified information related to national defense. The charges stem from one of the largest publications of classified information in U.S. history. In 2010, Assange published tens of thousands of documents related to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as State Department cables and information about the detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Assange was initially charged with 18 counts in 2019, after he was expelled from the Ecuadorian embassy in London. In 2013, Chelsea Manning, who leaked the documents to Assange, was sentenced to 35 years in prison before being released in 2020.

Assange has been fighting extradition for more than a decade, first in connection with a sex crimes case in Sweden and then in connection with the case against him in the U.S. He has argued that he is a journalist who published classified documents given to him, while his critics argue that he is not a journalist because he did not write stories or interview anyone or provide sufficient explanatory context to explain the raw classified documents and data that he released.

Free press advocates have praised Assange's release online. However, some have expressed concern that the deal will set a precedent for the prosecution of journalists in the future. The deal is purely symbolic and does not add any more prison time or punishment for Assange. The administration could have easily dropped the case but chose to instead legitimize the criminalization of routine journalistic conduct.

Assange's release has been welcomed by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who said that Assange's case has dragged on for too long and there is nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration. Australian lawmakers have also sent a letter to President Biden urging him to drop the case against Assange.

Assange has been a hero to many free press advocates. Robert Kennedy Jr. said he was "overjoyed" by the news, saying that Assange is a "generational hero." He further said that the U.S. government should build a monument honoring Assange and called for the release of whistleblower Edward Snowden, who remains in Russia after fleeing the U.S., and Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the online drug-selling site Silk Road.