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Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a felony charge of violating the U.S. Espionage Act<\/a>, securing his freedom under a plea deal that saw its final act play out in a remote U.S. courtroom in Saipan in the Western Pacific.<\/p>\n He appeared in court wearing a black suit with his lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, and Kevin Rudd, the Australian ambassador to the United States. He stood briefly and offered his plea more than a decade after he obtained and published classified secret military and diplomatic documents in 2010, moving a twisted case involving several countries and U.S. presidents closer to its conclusion. <\/p>\n It was all part of an agreement<\/a> allowing him to return to his native country, Australia, after spending more than five years in British custody \u2014 most of it fighting extradition to the United States.<\/p>\n His family and lawyers documented his journey from London to Bangkok and on to Saipan, capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth. They posted photos and videos online from a chartered jet. His defense team said Mr. Assange was not allowed to fly commercial, and his wife, Stella, posted<\/a> an urgent fund-raising appeal on the social media platform X, seeking help in covering the $520,000 cost that she said would have to be repaid to the Australian government.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In Australia, relatives, supporters and politicians seemed eager to welcome Mr. Assange home.<\/p>\n Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had lobbied heavily for his release. He responded to the deal by noting that the case had \u201cdragged on for too long.\u201d Many Australians seemed to agree, noting that Chelsea Manning, the person who had passed a vast trove of documents to WikiLeaks \u2014 including hundreds of thousands of military incident reports from Afghanistan \u2014 had already served her sentence and been set free.<\/p>\n Despite Australia\u2019s own strict espionage laws and deeply-entrenched culture of secrecy<\/a> \u2014 which would most likely have ensured many years in prison<\/a> had his leaks focused on the Australian government \u2014 his return won support from politicians on both the left and right.<\/p>\n David Shoebridge, a Greens senator from Sydney known for seeking to legalize cannabis, posted a video on X saying that Mr. Assange \u201cshould never have been in jail for the crime of telling the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n Barnaby Joyce, a conservative rural lawmaker, was just as effusive.<\/p>\n \u201cI was very happy to hear that an Australian citizen, who never committed a crime in Australia, was not a citizen of the United States, was never charged in the United Kingdom, is coming home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The embrace of Mr. Assange reflects what many see as both a cultural affinity for the underdog and a degree of ambivalence about America\u2019s wars after the Sept. 11 attacks, and the U.S. justice system.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cFor those at the liberal end of the spectrum, he is a hero precisely because he revealed secrets that Washington wanted to hide,\u201d said Hugh White, a former Australian government defense official and now a professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University.<\/p>\n \u201cEven conservative Australians,\u201d he added, \u201care not as unwilling as our public rhetoric might suggest to disapprove of what Washington does.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Assange\u2019s father, John Shipton, said that having his son home after 15 years of distance and detention incarceration in one form or another was \u201cpretty good news.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n