Julian Assange Reaches Deal to Avoid U.S. Prison Time

Breaking news overseas. The man behind one of the biggest national security breaches in US history is out of prison. WikiLeaks sharing overnight that their founder Julian Assange is free. They say he left a maximum security prison in the UK after having spent 1,901 days there. NBC's Claudio Lavanga joins us now. Good morning, Claudio. Assange still has to make a stop in court before he can go home to Australia. So what do we know about the hearing?

That's right, Francis. Well, you've seen Julian Assange yesterday boarding that plane in London after spending five years in high security prison there. He's now on his way to the Northern Mariana Island, which is in the US territory in the Pacific Ocean, where at least according to the deal that he struck with the US Justice Department, he will appear at a US Federal Court. There he will plead guilty of one charge under the Espionage Act, of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disclose classified national defense information. And then he's expected to be handed a 62 months in prison sentence, which he has already served in London, and therefore he will be immediately able to leave. He will be free. He will be immediately able to leave and go back to Australia, which is his homeland. Well, now let's just recap very quickly how we got here. In 2010, WikiLeaks, which is a website founded by Assange, disclosed and leaked about half a million documents, most of which were US military confidential information on reports about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. (01:34) An international arrest warrant was issued against Assange, and eventually he was arrested by British Police. And he spent all these years in prison trying to avoid extradition to the US, where if found guilty, he could have faced a sentence of up to 175 years in prison. Now, a national security spokesperson said that this was an independent decision by the US Department of Justice, and that the White House had no involvement in it, Francis.

Claudio Lavanga for us. Claudio, thank you.

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