The 52-year-old admitted to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defence information in the courtroom in the Northern Mariana Islands, a Pacific US territory.
He is expected to be sentenced to five years and two months in prison, with credit for the same amount of time he spent behind bars in Britain. After the hearing is done, Assange will fly to Canberra in Australia, WikiLeaks said on social media platform X, adding that the plea bargain"should never have had to happen."
The United Nations hailed Assange's release, saying the case had raised"a series of human rights concerns". He was arrested after spending seven years in Ecuador's London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced accusations of sexual assault that were eventually dropped.
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