Julian Assange has arrived back in his native Australia after striking a plea deal with a US court to allow him to walk free, bringing an end a 14-year legal battle. The 52-year-old landed in Canberra on a six-hour flight from the island of Saipan, an American territory in the Pacific, where he was freed after pleading guilty to one charge of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information. Under the deal, a judge sentenced him to his time already served Belmarsh Prison , where he had spent five years locked up while fighting US attempts to extradite him, and wished him an “early happy birthday” for when he turns 53 next week.
US prosecutors had wanted Assange over accusations he broke the law and put the country’s national security at risk via the WikiLeaks website he founded in 2006. During a three-hour hearing on the US Pacific island territory of Saipan before flying to Australia, Assange pleaded guilty to one criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified national defence documents but said he had believed the U.S.
Constitution's First Amendment, which protects free speech, shielded his activities. "Working as a journalist I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified in order to publish that information," he told the court. "I believed the First Amendment protected that activity but I accept that it was .
.. a violation of the espionage statute.
" On Wednesday, after arriving in the Australian capital, he.
