CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been released from British jail and was flying back to his home country after he agreed to a plea deal to U.S. criminal charges.
On Monday, the 52-year old whistle blower pleaded guilty to an espionage charge of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified U.S. national defense documents, in order to avoid potential imprisonment in the U.S.
It marked the end to his 12-year battle against extradition to the United States.
'Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there,' WikiLeaks said in a statement posted on Tuesday. 'He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK.'
Wikileaks said he will soon reunite with his wife Stella Assange, and their children.
'WikiLeaks published groundbreaking stories of government corruption and human rights abuses, holding the powerful accountable for their actions. As editor-in-chief, Julian paid severely for these principles, and for the people's right to know,' said the whistleblowing website founded by Assange.
Assange is expected to return to Australia after attending a court hearing in Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, a remote US territory in the Pacific, reports say.
An Australian editor, publisher and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006, he came to international attention in 2010 after WikiLeaks published a series of highly classified materials from US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. It included footage of a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad, U.S. military logs from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and U.S. diplomatic cables.
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