WikiLeaks says Julian Assange is 'free,' has left UK

This screen shot courtesy of WikiLeaks X page shows Wikileaks founder Julian Assange walking to board a plane from London Stansted Airport on June 24, 2024

Julian Assange was released from prison Monday and has left Britain, WikiLeaks said, as he reached a landmark plea deal with U.S. authorities that brought an end to his years-long legal drama.

"Julian Assange is free," WikiLeaks wrote on X of its founder, who had been detained in Britain for five years as he fought extradition to the United States which sought to prosecute him for revealing military secrets.

He has agreed to plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defense information, according to a document filed in court in the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific.

Assange is scheduled to appear in the U.S. territory on Wednesday morning local time.

He is expected to be sentenced to 62 months in prison, with credit for the five years and two months he has served in prison in Britain. This means he could return to his native Australia.

The Australian government responded that Assange's case had "dragged on for too long" and there was "nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration."

The publisher, now aged 52, was wanted by Washington for publishing hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. documents from 2010 as head of the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

During his ordeal Assange became a hero to free speech campaigners around the world and a villain to those who thought he endangered U.S. national security and intelligence sources by revealing secrets.

U.S. authorities wanted to put Assange on trial for divulging military secrets about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The plea bargain...