A costly victory: according to documents leaked earlier this week, whistleblower and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has agreed to a plea deal with the US courts. In exchange for acknowledging the charges against him, Assange was handed a 62-month prison sentence. Since he has already served this sentence in the UK, he was allowed to walk free. Following his appearance on 26 June before a court in the Mariana Islands (USA), Assange was allowed to return to his native Australia and join his family, after 14 years of struggle and imprisonment.
Assange had been incarcerated in a high-security prison in London, after spending seven years as a refugee in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He was accused of disclosing classified US documents, including some relating to the Iraq war, on his WikiLeaks platform.