Assange free in US plea deal & London’s soaring beer price ...The Standard podcast
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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has left London after agreeing a US plea deal that will see him plead guilty to a criminal charge and go free.
Assange was locked in a lengthy legal battle in the UK over his extradition.
It saw him claim asylum at the Ecuador’s London embassy in 2012 to avoid rape and sexual assault allegations in Sweden, which he denied, before Assange’s detention in Belmarsh prison on spying charges.
His legal battle with the US followed publication of hundreds of thousands of secret documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
Assange left Britain on a charter flight from Stansted after being granted bail by the High Court and released from Belmarsh following negotiations with US authorities and campaigning by supporters.
Assange will return to his home country of Australia after appearing in court in the Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific, to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defence information.
Evening Standard home affairs editor Martin Bentham examines what’s next in the legal case and Assange’s timeline of being locked up in London.
Plus, in part two, we look at the increasing price of a pint of beer in London, now at an average £6.75.
Evening Standard business editor Jonathan Prynn discusses soaring costs hitting the capital’s hospitality sector that are being passed on to the consumer.
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