The drawn-out legal case involving WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has concluded with his guilty plea to obtaining and publishing U.S. military secrets.
In a deal with the U.S. Justice Department, Assange was sentenced Wednesday to the five years he’d already served in a British prison while fighting extradition. It allows him to walk free and resolves the case that centered on the publication of a trove of classified documents.
— 2006: Assange founded WikiLeaks in Australia. The group begins publishing sensitive or classified documents.
— 2010: In a series of posts, WikiLeaks releases almost half a million documents relating to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
— August 2010: Swedish prosecutors issue an arrest warrant for Assange based on one woman’s allegation of rape and another’s allegation of molestation. The warrant is withdrawn shortly afterward, with prosecutors citing insufficient evidence for the rape allegation. Assange denies the allegations.
— September 2010: Sweden’s director of prosecutions reopens the rape investigation. Assange leaves Sweden for Britain.
— November 2010: Swedish police issue an international arrest warrant for Assange.
— December 2010: Assange surrenders to police in London and is detained pending an extradition hearing. The High Court grants Assange bail.
— February 2011: A district court in Britain rules Assange should be extradited to Sweden.
— June 2012: Assange enters the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, seeking asylum, after his bids to appeal the extradition ruling fail. Police set up an around-the-clock guard to arrest him if he steps outside.
— August 2012: Ecuador grants him political asylum.
— July 2014: A judge in Sweden upholds the arrest warrant against him that alleges sexual offenses against two women.
— March 2015: Swedish prosecutors ask to question Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy.
— August 2015: Swedish prosecutors drop investigations into some allegations against Assange because of the statute of limitations; an investigation into a rape allegation remains active.
— October 2015: Metropolitan Police end their 24-hour guard outside the Ecuadorian Embassy but say they’ll arrest Assange if he leaves, ending a three-year police operation estimated to have cost millions.
— February 2016: Assange claims “total vindication” as the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention finds that he has been unlawfully detained and recommends he be immediately freed and given compensation. Britain calls the finding “frankly ridiculous.”
— September 2018: Ecuador’s president says his country and Britain are working on a legal solution to allow Assange to leave the embassy.
— October 2018: Assange seeks a court injunction pressing Ecuador to provide him basic rights he said the country agreed to when it first granted him asylum.
— November 2018: A U.S. court filing that appears to inadvertently reveal the existence of a sealed criminal case against Assange is discovered by a researcher. No details are confirmed.
— April 2019: Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno blames WikiLeaks for recent corruption allegations; Ecuador’s government revokes Assange’s asylum status. London police haul Assange out of the Ecuadorian Embassy and arrest him for breaching bail conditions in 2012, as well as on behalf of U.S. authorities.
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