“I believed in the First Amendment, but I admit it was a violation of the Espionage Act”

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been released from a court in Saipan, a US island territory in the Pacific Ocean, after pleading guilty to violating US espionage law, under a deal that will allow him to return to Australia, bringing an extraordinary judicial saga to an end.

During the three-hour hearing, Assange pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obtain and disclose classified US national defense documents, but said he believed the US First Amendment, which protects freedom of expression, protects his activities.

“In my work as a journalist, I encouraged my source to provide me with classified information so I could publish it,” he told the court. “I believe the First Amendment protected that activity, but I acknowledge it was a violation of the Espionage Act.”

The guilty plea was entered Wednesday morning in federal court in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a US Commonwealth in the Pacific. Assange chose the island because of its proximity to Australia.

Assange, who traveled to Saipan from London, arrived at the court accompanied by Australian Ambassador to the United States Kevin Rudd and Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom Stephen Smith. It was received by a large number of foreign and local media.

The hearing is the culmination of years of US government harassment of the publisher, who has been portrayed as a hero of press freedom and a courageous man for exposing hundreds of thousands of sensitive military documents.

Inside a wood-paneled courtroom at the foot of a lush hill on the coast of Saipan, US government lawyer Matthew McKenzie read aloud extensive details of classified documents obtained by Assange’s source, Chelsea, and published by WikiLeaks. McKenzie, the deputy chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence division, said Assange’s views on the First Amendment and the Espionage Act did not match the facts. “We reject those sentiments, but we accept that he believes them,” McKenzie said.

District Judge Ramona V. Manglona accepted Assange’s guilty plea and granted him unsupervised release upon completion of his sentence at London’s Belmont prison.

At the conclusion of the hearing, he said: “With this verdict it looks like he will be able to leave this court as a free man. I hope peace will be restored.” A visibly emotional Assange hugged his legal team.

Leaving the court, Assange’s lawyer Jennifer Robinson thanked Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for helping to free Assange.

According to the flight log, Assange is due to depart Saipan shortly after noon local time. WikiLeaks said he will then fly to Canberra, where he will meet his family.

The Justice Department agreed to hold the hearing on the remote island because of Assange’s opposition to travelling to the mainland United States and its proximity to Australia.

The settlement – revealed in court documents on Monday – represents the final chapter in a more than decade-long legal battle over the fate of Assange, who was hailed by many around the world as a hero who exposed US military irregularities in Iraq and Afghanistan, while others – including several US governments – said his publication of secret documents put people’s lives at risk.

Before being locked up in London, Assange spent years hiding in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden to face rape and sexual assault charges, which he denies and which were later dropped by Swedish authorities.

His wife Stella Assange told the BBC from Australia that the possibility of the deal going ahead had been “up in the air” for 72 hours but that she felt “ecstatic” at the news. The lawyer, who will marry the WikiLeaks founder in prison in 2022, said details of the deal would be made public once it was signed off by a judge.

“Once the judge signs it, he’ll be a free man,” he said, adding that it’s not yet considered real.

Assange on Monday left Belmarsh prison, where he has spent the past five years, after being released on bail in a secret hearing last week. He boarded a plane to refuel before flying again to Saipan, landing in Bangkok hours later. A video published by WikiLeaks on X shows Assange staring out the window at the blue sky as the plane heads towards the island.

“Go figure. More than 5 years in a tiny cell in a maximum-security prison. That’s almost 14 years in detention in the United Kingdom,” WikiLeaks wrote. Australia’s top diplomat in the UK was on the flight with Assange.