WikiLeaks founder Assange freed in US plea deal

Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands: Julian Assange walked free and was on his way back to his native Australia on Wednesday after a plea deal with the U...

Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands: Julian Assange walked free and was on his way back to his native Australia on Wednesday after a plea deal with the United States ended years of legal drama for the WikiLeaks founder.

Assange, who from 2010 published hundreds of thousands of confidential US documents on the whistleblowing website, was released this week from a high-security British prison.

The 52-year-old traveled to the Northern Mariana Islands, a Pacific US territory, to plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defense information.

He was sentenced Wednesday to five years and two months in prison -- but credited for the same amount of time he spent behind bars in Britain while fighting extradition to the United States.

"You will be able to walk out of this courtroom a free man," the judge told Assange, adding she hoped the deal would restore some "peace" to him after his incarceration.