Australia Assange plane takes off for US foreign territory

The plane that, according to Wikileaks, is carrying Julian Assange, who has been released from British custody, took off for the Western Pacific on Tuesday evening after a stopover of several hours in Bangkok. The Bombardier charter plane is flying from Thailand's capital to the island of Saipan, which belongs to the Northern Mariana Islands and is an external territory of the USA. The aircraft is reportedly expected to arrive early in the morning (local time). On the "flightradar24" platform, the flight number VJT199, which Assange's wife Stella and Wikileaks had previously mentioned in social media, was the connection most monitored by users worldwide.

The Australian is due to appear in court in the US foreign territory on Wednesday. Assange is expected to plead guilty at the court hearing to conspiracy to unlawfully obtain and distribute classified documents as part of a deal with the US justice system and be sentenced to more than five years in prison. This corresponds to the length of time the whistleblower has already spent in a high-security prison in London. The 52-year-old is then expected to travel to his Australian homeland. The USA accuses Assange of stealing and publishing secret material from military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan with whistleblower Chelsea Manning, thereby endangering the lives of US whistleblowers.