WikiLeaks founder Assange pleads guilty in U.S. deal to secure freedom

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange pleaded guilty to one charge of violating the U.S. espionage law on Wednesday in a courtroom on the U.S. Pacific island territory of Saipan where he is expected to walk free after a deal with the prosecutors.

Assange, 52, arrived at the court house in a white SUV. He was wearing a black suit and smiled as he walked past security with his team and Australian Ambassador to the U.S. Kevin Rudd.

Dozens of media from around the world gathered outside the courtroom to cover the proceedings. Media was not allowed inside the courtroom to cover the hearing.

"I watch this and think how overloaded his senses must be, walking through the press scrum after years of sensory deprivation and the four walls of his high security Belmarsh prison cell," Stella Assange, the wife of WikiLeaks founder said on social media platform X.

Assange had agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified U.S. national defense documents, according to filings in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.

The U.S. territory in the western Pacific was chosen due to Assange's opposition to travelling to the mainland U.S. and for its proximity to Australia, prosecutors said.

If the judge approves his plea, Assange is expected to return to his home in Australia, the U.S. prosecutors have said.

Assange is due to be sentenced to 62 months of time already served at the hearing.

Australian-born Assange spent more than five years in a British high-security jail and seven holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London as he fought accusations of sex crimes in Sweden and battled extradition to the U.S., where he faced 18 criminal charges.

Assange's supporters view him as a victim because he exposed the U.S. wrongdoing and potential crimes, including in conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Washington has said the release of the secret documents put lives in danger.

The Australian government has been advocating for his release and has raised the issue with the U.S. several times.

"For any Australian to be in a position of being in protracted incarceration without legal resolution is a situation where the government should be advocating on their behalf and we have been doing that," Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles told ABC television on Wednesday.

Marles added that Assange's release would not sour relations between Australia and close ally the U.S.