Assange home at last to begin life as a free man

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange returned home to Australia to start life as a free man yesterday after admitting he revealed United States defense secrets in a deal that unlocked the door to his London prison cell.

Assange, 52, landed in Canberra, the final act of an international drama that led him from a five-year stretch in the high-security Belmarsh prison in Britain to a courtroom in a US Pacific island territory and, finally, home.

The Australian raised a fist as he emerged from the plane door, hugged his wife Stella and embraced his father.

"He will be able to spend quality time with his wife Stella and his two children, be able to walk up and down on the beach and feel the sand through his toes in winter - that lovely chill," said Assange's father, John Shipton.

Assange's long battle with US prosecutors came to an end in the Northern Mariana Islands when a judge accepted his guilty plea on a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defense information.

As part of a behind-the-scenes legal negotiation with the US Justice Department he was sentenced to the time he had already served and given his liberty.

"You will be able to walk out of this courtroom a free man," the judge told him.

Assange had published hundreds of thousands of confidential US documents on the whistleblowing website from 2010. "Working as a journalist, I encouraged my source to provide material that was said to be classified," Assange told the court.

Australian Prime Minster Anthony Albanese said: "Regardless of your views about his activities ... Mr Assange's case has dragged on for too long."

But former US vice president Mike Pence said it "dishonors the service and sacrifice of the men and women of our Armed Forces."

In 2019 Assange was arrested and held in Belmarsh prison while fighting extradition to the United States. He had spent seven years in Ecuador's embassy in London to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where he faced accusations of sexual assault that were eventually dropped.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE