A plane carrying Julian Assange from the U.K. landed in Bangkok on Tuesday afternoon, but the Wikileaks founder is scheduled to proceed to the little-known island in the western Pacific, where he will appear before a U.S. federal court.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange will enter his plea before a U.S. federal court in the Northern ... [+]
According to the Associated Press, Assange arrived at the Don Mueang International Airport in Bangkok on board a chartered plane VJT199.
The plane—operated by Malta-based chartered service provider VistaJet—arrived in Bangkok at around 12.30 p.m. local time, flight tracking data shows.
Citing an unnamed senior Thai official, AFP reported the chartered jet would get refueled and resupplied during the stopover and Assange will leave for the island of Saipan at 9 p.m. local time.
Saipan is the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands—a U.S. territory located in the Western Pacific around 135 miles northeast of Guam.
Assange will appear before a U.S. Federal Court in Saipan at 9 a.m. local time on Wednesday, where he will enter a guilty plea on one count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified U.S. national defense documents and be sentenced to 62 months for the time he’s already served in a U.K. prison.
U.S. Federal Judge Ramona V. Manglona will oversee Assange’s Wednesday hearing, the Saipan Tribune reported.
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The Northern Mariana Islands territory is made up of 14 northernmost islands of the Mariana archipelago. The island chain had previously been a colony of Spain, Germany and Japan, and it served as a launching point for the Japanese invasion of Guam after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The U.S. took control of the island after Japan was defeated in World War II. After several failed attempts to integrate with Guam, the island’s residents voted to become a U.S. commonwealth in 1975. Saipan is both the capital of the territory and its largest island.
According to U.S. prosecutors, Saipan was chosen as the site of Assange’s plea and sentencing, as the Wikileaks founder was unwilling to travel to the U.S. mainland. Saipan’s proximity to Australia, Assange’s home country, is one of the reasons he agreed to go there, the prosecutors said. According to a reporter from Australian public broadcaster ABC, Assange’s legal team feared he could potentially face the death penalty or life imprisonment if he went to the U.S. mainland, “and they wouldn't be able to get him back out.” The reporter speculated that the decision to hold the plea and sentencing in Saipan may have been a “really significant part of getting this deal over the line.”
WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Reaches Plea Deal With U.S. Government—Set To Be Freed From Prison (Forbes)