Assange set to be freed after pleading guilty to breaking US spying law

Deal ends 14-year British legal odyssey and lets WikiLeaks founder return to Australia

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is due to plead guilty on June 26 to violating US espionage law, in a deal that will set him free after a 14-year British legal odyssey and allow his return home to Australia.

Assange, 52, has agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents, according to filings in the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.

The deal marks the end of a legal saga that has seen Assange spend 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 US, where he faced 18 criminal charges.

The US government viewed him as a reckless villain who had endangered the lives of agents through WikiLeaks’ mass release of secret US documents – the largest security breach of its kind in US military history.

But to free-press advocates and his supporters, who included world leaders, celebrities and some prominent journalists, he is a hero for exposing wrongdoing and alleged war crimes, and was persecuted for embarrassing the US authorities.

At 9am local time on June 26, at a hearing in Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands, Assange is due to be sentenced to 62 months of time already served.

The US territory in the Pacific was chosen due to Assange’s opposition to travelling to the mainland US and for its proximity to Australia, prosecutors said.