Julian Assange's guilty plea signals the end of a years-long legal saga

"Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of June 24, after having spent 1,901 days there. 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 in a post on X.

It was not immediately clear how he would get to the US territory of the Northern Mariana Islands, where he is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday.

Who is Julian Assange?

Australian editor, publisher and computer specialist Assange and his WikiLeaks were thrust into prominence - and notoriety - in 2010 after releasing nearly half a million documents related to the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - the largest security breaches of its kind in US military history.

Press freedom advocates hailed the 52-year-old for exposing US military misconduct in foreign countries. But the American prosecutors alleged that Assange was nothing more than a hacker and had conspired with an Army private - identified as intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning - to obtain and publish sensitive government records.

After a trial, Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison, the longest sentence in a leak-related case in the US. However, her sentence was later commuted by former president Barack Obama.

But, in 2010, Assange's reputation took a further hit from sexual assault allegations in Sweden, which he denied. To avoid arrest, Assange took shelter at the London embassy of Ecuador, which granted him political asylum based on his claim of political persecution.

In the seven years he spent at the embassy, Swedish prosecutors dropped the investigation. But, in 2019, Assange was eventually arrested in that case for violating his bail conditions after Ecuador revoked his asylum. He was sentenced to 50 weeks in jail and continued to fight his extradition to the US from Belmarsh prison where he was lodged.

What is the case against him?

In April 2019, the US justice department filed an 18-count indictment alleging that Assange damaged national security by publishing confidential documents that harmed the US and its allies while helping its adversaries.

“Julian Assange is no journalist,” said US assistant attorney general John Demers, the department’s top national security official at the time. “No responsible actor, journalist or otherwise, would purposely publish the names of individuals he or she knew to be confidential human sources in war zones, exposing them to the gravest of dangers.”

Assange's lawyer, Barry Pollack, said the "unprecedented charges" imperil “all journalists in their endeavour to inform the public about actions that have been taken by the US government”. US prosecutors worked to differentiate between Assange and the work done by journalists.

What's next?

In a letter to district Judge Ramona Manglona, US justice department official Matthew McKenzie said Assange will appear in court in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, at 9 am (local time) on Wednesday to plead guilty to the "charge in the information of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified information relating to the national defence of the United States, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 793(g), and be sentenced by the Court for that offence."

Reports say he will be sentenced on the same day to 62 months in prison - which he has already served at Belmarsh. If all goes well, Assange will walk free soon.

The sentencing in the Northern Mariana Islands is significant in light of Assange's fraught legal battle against extradition to the "continental" US. The Islands, in the western Pacific, are also close to his home country of Australia. The extradition request is expected to be dropped and he will not face any other charges, reports said. The US government has yet to officially confirm the deal.