WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange freed in US plea deal

Julian Assange was on his way to his native Australia on Wednesday as a free man after years of international legal drama for the WikiLeaks founder, who had long been wanted for revealing US state secrets, News.Az reports citing AFP.

Assange, who from 2010 published hundreds of thousands of secret US documents as head of the whistleblowing website, was released this week from a high-security British prison.

The 52-year-old traveled to the Northern Mariana Islands, a Pacific US territory, to plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defence information.

He was sentenced Wednesday to five years and two months in prison -- but credited for the same amount of time he spent behind bars in Britain while fighting extradition to the United States.

"You will be able to walk out of this courtroom a free man," the judge told Assange, adding she hoped the deal would restore some "peace" to him after his incarceration.

Over the years, Assange has become a hero to free speech campaigners and a villain to those who thought he had endangered US security and intelligence sources.

He did not address the media as he left the court, and his plane took off shortly thereafter for Canberra, where he will be reunited with his family.

"Working as a journalist, I encouraged my source to provide material that was said to be classified," Assange, dressed in a black suit with a brown tie and his hair slicked back, told the court.

His lawyer Jen Robinson said after the hearing it was a "historic day" that "brings to an end 14 years of legal battles".

"It also brings to an end a case which has been recognised as the greatest threat to the First Amendment in the 21st century," she told reporters, calling the plea bargain a "huge relief".

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the plea deal hearing was a "welcome development".

His government had earlier said Assange's case had "dragged on for too long" with "nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration".

WikiLeaks said on social media platform X that the plea bargain "should never have had to happen."

Assange's mother Christine said in a statement carried by Australian media that she was "grateful that my son's ordeal is finally coming to an end."

The announcement of the deal came two weeks before Assange was scheduled to appear in court in Britain to appeal against a ruling that approved his extradition to the United States.

Assange had been detained in the high-security Belmarsh prison in London since April 2019.

He was arrested after spending seven years in Ecuador's London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced accusations of sexual assault that were eventually dropped.

News.Az