The plane carrying Assange touched down more than two hours before Wednesday's scheduled start of a plea hearing, in which he is set to admit to a felony for publishing US military secrets under a deal that spares him prison time in US after years spent jailed in the United Kingdom while fighting extradition.
He arrived in a white vehicle, wearing a dark suit with a tie loosened at the collar, and was briskly escorted into the courthouse while ignoring questions from reporters.
The hearing, taking place in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US commonwealth in the Pacific, is the stunning culmination of the US government's pursuit of Assange.
The US Justice Department agreed to hold the hearing on the remote island because Assange opposed coming to the continental US and because it's near Australia, where he will return after he enters his plea.
The United States courthouse in Saipan where Julian Assange is expected to enter a plea deal. (AP PHOTO)
The plea deal represents the final chapter in a more than decade-long legal odyssey over the fate of Assange, whose WikiLeaks website made him a cause célèbre among press freedom advocates who said he acted as a journalist to expose US military wrongdoing.
US prosecutors have said his actions recklessly put the country's national security at risk.
Though the deal with prosecutors requires Assange to admit guilt to a single felony count, it also allows him to avoid spending any time in an American prison. He will get credit for the five years he has already spent in a high-security British prison while fighting extradition to the US to face charges.
Before being locked up in London, Assange spent years hiding out in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault, which he has denied.
The abrupt conclusion enables both sides to claim a degree of success, with the Justice Department able to resolve without trial a case that raised thorny legal issues and that might never have reached a jury at all given the plodding pace of the extradition process.
Last month, Assange won the right to appeal an extradition order after his lawyers argued that the US government provided "blatantly inadequate" assurances that he would have the same free speech protections as an American citizen if extradited from Britain.
His wife, Stella Assange, told the BBC from Australia that it had been "touch and go" over 72 hours whether the deal would go ahead but she felt "elated" at the news.
A lawyer who married the WikiLeaks founder in prison in 2022, she said details of the agreement would be made public once the judge had signed off on it.
"He will be a free man once it is signed off by a judge," she said, adding that she still didn't think it was real.
Assange on Monday left the London prison, where he has spent the last five years, after being granted bail during a secret hearing last week. He boarded a plane that landed hours later in Bangkok to refuel before taking off again toward Saipan. A video posted by WikiLeaks on X, showed Assange staring intently out the window at the blue sky as the plane headed toward the island.
"Imagine. From over 5 years in a small cell in a maximum security prison. Nearly 14 years detained in the UK To this," WikiLeaks posted on X, formerly Twitter.
Imagine. From over 5 years in a small cell in a maximum security prison. Nearly 14 years detained in the UK. — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) To this.For the "privilege" Julian Assange must pay over half a million US dollars. Please help if you can: https://t.co/bBkYB5mycE #AssangeJet pic.twitter.com/Qau948K94vJune 25, 2024
The guilty plea resolves a criminal case brought by former US president Donald Trump's administration over the receipt and publication of war logs and diplomatic cables that detailed US military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Prosecutors alleged that Assange conspired with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to obtain the records and published them without regard to American national security, including by releasing the names of human sources who provided information to US forces.
