In 2010, WikiLeaks published classified U.S. military material supplied by Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, including the 2007 Baghdad airstrike video, the Iraq War Logs and the Afghan War Diaries. U.S. prosecutors alleged that Assange conspired with Manning to crack a password hash so she could use another username to download government files, potentially making her harder to identify. A federal grand jury in Virginia issued a sealed indictment on 6 March 2018; it was unsealed after Assange’s arrest in London on 11 April 2019. The initial computer-intrusion charge carried a maximum five-year sentence, followed on 23 May 2019 by 17 Espionage Act charges carrying a theoretical maximum of 170 years.
The expanded indictment filed in June 2020 alleged that Assange recruited hackers and system administrators, encouraged unauthorized access to government systems and worked with members of LulzSec and Anonymous. Assange’s defenders and press-freedom groups, including Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights Watch, argued that prosecuting him for obtaining and publishing leaked information threatened journalism and whistleblowers; U.S. authorities said the case involved hacking and disclosure of sources at risk. Separately, the UK convicted Assange of breaching bail on 1 May 2019 and sentenced him to 50 weeks in prison. After years of extradition litigation—including a UK extradition order in April 2022—Assange pleaded guilty in June 2024 to conspiring to obtain and disclose national-defense information. With time served, he was released, ending the U.S. case while leaving the press-freedom precedent contested.
