Julian Assange was on his way home to Australia as a free man on Wednesday after a plea deal ended years of legal drama for the WikiLeaks founder, who had long been wanted for revealing US state secrets. Assange, who from 2010 published hundreds of thousands of confidential US documents on the whistleblowing website, was released this week from a high-security British prison. The 52-year-old travelled 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 \u2014 but credited for the same amount of time he spent behind bars in Britain while fighting extradition to the United States. \u201cYou will be able to walk out of this courtroom a free man,\u201d the judge told Assange, adding she hoped the deal would restore some \u201cpeace\u201d to him after his incarceration. Assange has become a hero to free speech campaigners and a villain to those who thought he had endangered US security and intelligence sources. \u201cWorking as a journalist, I encouraged my source to provide material that was said to be classified,\u201d Assange, dressed in a black suit with a brown tie and his hair slicked back, told the court. But he did not address the media as he left the building, and his plane took off shortly after for Canberra, where he will be reunited with his family. His lawyer Jen Robinson told reporters it was a \u201chistoric day\u201d that \u201cbrings to an end 14 years of legal battles\u201d. \u201cIt also brings to an end a case which has been recognised as the greatest threat to the First Amendment in the 21st century,\u201d she said. Case \u2018dragged on\u2019 Looking tired but relaxed during the proceedings, Assange shared a brief laugh with Kevin Rudd, Australia\u2019s ambassador to the United States. Journalists and curious locals, several in colourful Hawaiian shirts, packed the small courtroom. One Saipan resident told AFP he had come to \u201csee the main event\u201d. The Northern Mariana Islands was chosen for the hearing because of Assange\u2019s unwillingness to go to the continental United States and because of its proximity to Australia. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the plea deal a \u201cwelcome development\u201d. His government earlier said Assange\u2019s case had \u201cdragged on for too long\u201d with \u201cnothing to be gained by his continued incarceration\u201d. The United Nations also hailed Assange\u2019s release, saying the case had raised human rights concerns. But former US vice president Mike Pence slammed the plea deal on social media platform X as a \u201cmiscarriage of justice\u201d that \u201cdishonours the service and sacrifice of the men and women of our armed forces\u201d. The US justice department said after the hearing that Assange was banned from returning there without permission. \u2018Can\u2019t stop crying\u2019 US authorities had wanted to put Assange on trial for divulging military secrets about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was indicted by a US federal grand jury in 2019 on 18 counts stemming from WikiLeaks\u2019 publication of a trove of national security documents. The material he released through WikiLeaks included a video showing civilians being killed by fire from a US helicopter gunship in Iraq in 2007. The victims included a photographer and a driver from Reuters. In 2019, he was arrested and held in London\u2019s Belmarsh prison after spending seven years in Ecuador\u2019s embassy in the UK capital to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced accusations of sexual assault that were eventually dropped. He met his wife Stella Assange while holed up in the embassy, and the pair married in a ceremony in London\u2019s Belmarsh prison. They have two young children. \u201cI can\u2019t stop crying,\u201d Stella, who will be waiting for him in Australia, said on X. The announcement of the plea 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. Washington had accused Assange under the 1917 Espionage Act and supporters warned he risked being sentenced to 175 years in prison. The plea deal was not entirely unexpected. US President Joe Biden had been under growing pressure to drop the long-running case against Assange. The Australian government made an official request to that effect in February and Biden said he would consider it, raising hopes among Assange supporters that his ordeal might end. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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