Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has reportedly agreed to plead guilty in a US court to disclosing military secrets in exchange for his release, bringing an end to his lengthy legal battle, according to court papers released on Monday evening.
Assange, who was detained in the UK, will enter a guilty plea to a single charge of conspiracy to acquire and disseminate national defence information, as per the court filing in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the Pacific.
Early Tuesday morning in Britain, WikiLeaks announced that "Julian Assange is now free" and had left the country. He is set to make an appearance on Wednesday morning local time in the US territory.
It is anticipated that Assange will be sentenced to 62 months in prison, taking into account the five years he has already served in a British prison. This would mean he could potentially return to his home country of Australia.
The publisher, now 52, was wanted by Washington for publishing hundreds of thousands of secret US documents from 2010 as head of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.
During his difficult experience, Assange garnered support from free speech advocates worldwide and faced criticism from those who believed he put US national security and intelligence sources at risk by exposing secrets.
US authorities sought to prosecute Assange for disclosing US military secrets related to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This agreement for a plea deal is expected to bring an end to Assange's lengthy legal battle spanning nearly 14 years.
The announcement of the settlement arrived two weeks before Assange's scheduled court appearance in Britain to contest a ruling endorsing his extradition to the United States.
Assange has been held in London's high-security Belmarsh prison since April 2019.
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