Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has left the UK and has landed in Australia. He is now a free man after reaching a plea deal with the US – who had been seeking to prosecute him for leaking military information.

Assange has spent five years in prison in the UK fighting extradition to the US. Before that he spent seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

During the post-Iraq invasion/financial crisis/Occupy-years he was lauded as a hero.

Then came allegations of sexual assault in Sweden and questions around his links to Russia. Instead of being extradited to Sweden, where he would have faced charged of rape, he escaped bail in London and sought political asylum and refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy – just around the corner from Harrods.

The astrological story of Julian Assange

Julian Assange has an interesting birth chart with Mars almost exactly conjunct his IC, point of home and the North Node thrown into the mix too. His Sun is in patriotic, home loving Cancer in the 8th house of sex, taboo, power and secrets. His Moon is in perceptive, sharp-thinking and power-hungry Scorpio in the 12th house of the subconscious.

Cancer is often described as the sign of the mother and the nurturer, but Cancer can also be quite a self-interested sign. It’s interested in nurturing and mothering itself. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just a different expression of those Cancerian vibes.

To me Julian Assange’s birth chart speaks of a person who has a sharp and penetrating mind, someone who is focused on questions around power and home, and who isn’t afraid to shake things up, to break things in order to change things to how he thinks they should be (IC/Mars/North Node in the maverick sign Aquarius).

He wouldn’t be afraid to hurt people along the way either with this chart – it’s the ideas and the ideals that matter, not the people or their feelings.

He has Pluto and Uranus in the 11th house of the collective – so he might appear a bit shocking to the collective, but there is also some kind of deep, compelling or perhaps compulsive link between him and “the people”. The collective might also bring shocking and difficult events into his life.

Saturn is almost exactly on his Descendant, the point of “the other”, in the 6th house of service. Relationships might not come easily and there might be power imbalances to deal with.

Finally he has Neptune and Jupiter in the 12th house on his Ascendant in free-thinking, ideological and free-spirited Sagittarius. So who he is seen to be is lifted up by the fantasies of the collective. And at the same time he would be someone who becomes the target of others people’s projections and fantasies – perhaps being made to spend his life playing the role of the archetypal Sagittarius.

Why was he released now?

I suspect the discussions around this plea deal might have started when Pluto moved into Aquarius in the spring. That’s when it would have started to trine his Saturn/Descendant and sextiled his Neptune/Ascendant – both positive and supportive aspects suggesting a significant change is in the air.

Jupiter, the planet of good fortune, would also have been crossing his Saturn/Descendant and opposing his Jupiter/Neptune and Ascendant, sprinkling some extra good fortune on that Pluto transit.

As Pluto is now moving backward over those points the deal has been finalised and he is released.

It’s fitting that it is Pluto who will release him as he entered the Ecuadorian Embassy and his imprisonment started with Pluto squaring his natal Moon and opposing his Sun from his second house of finance, security and self-confidence. Mars, the planet of aggression, also crossed his natal Pluto in 2012.

It’s also interesting that Uranus, the planet of sudden shocks and surprising events, was conjunct his Chiron in the 5th house of children and love affairs in 2012. Suggesting his inner wounding was activated in a sudden and surprising way – and that this wound might be connected to some kind of aggression and sex (Aries and 5th house). Chiron is sometimes a placement that can speak of self-sabotage.

Saturn would then have crossed his Moon and the other placements in the 12th house, as well as his Ascendant, during the years in the embassy – bringing constriction, restriction and perhaps a period of low health.

Then, in April 2019 when Ecuador revoked his asylum and he was sent to HMP Belmarsh, Pluto and then Saturn moved from his second house into his third house of communication and the mind. Perhaps suggesting that this was the time when he became serious about how to get out.

Another significant time for Pluto transits came two years later – around the pandemic. Pluto opposed his natal Mercury, trined his Pluto and sextiled his Jupiter, which could have been a positive shift and lead to breakthroughs around how to move forward, especially with the legal side of the story. Around this time Australian MPs visited the UK in order to help him and his case.

There might have been setbacks – or hard work – when Saturn crossed his IC and Mars in 2022. He also had his Chiron return. In April that year his extradition to the US was approved.

Why didn’t it go through? Perhaps his lucky natal Jupiter saved him. On the day when the extradition was approved by the UK courts a Jupiter/Neptune conjunction opposed Assange’s natal Pluto and trined his Jupiter and Mercury – suggesting that the outcome of the ruling might not be negative for him.

After several attempts to appeal he was given permission to do so in May this year – just as Pluto had crossed into Aquarius and with transiting Sun/Venus/Jupiter and Uranus tapping into the same pattern – on his natal Saturn. This was the point when he won his freedom.

Ultimately it seems like it was his country that came through for him – or at least claimed the win.

When Julian Assange touched down on Australian soil on the 26th of June 2024 Australian PM Anthony Albanese said he had fought for Assange because he believes “in standing up for Australian citizens”.

Quite a fitting end to this chapter in the life of a man with so many placements that speak of home and his homeland.

The astrology suggests this isn’t the last we will hear of Mr Assange. He had a progressed New Moon in 2020, very near his Midheaven, suggesting the next 30-year chapter of his life might bring more fame, infamy and renown.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash and Acidpolly on Flickr.