WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be reunited with his wife and family after touching down on home soil a free man for the first time in more than a decade.
Assange, 52, landed at RAAF Base Fairbairn in Canberra just before 7.40pm (AEST) on Wednesday after flying in on a chartered jet from Saipan, a tiny US territory more than 5000km from Australia, where he had faced court earlier in the day.
Waiting for him was his father John Shipton and wife Stella Assange.
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Loved ones say family time will be his priority on return but it still unclear how his first day at home will play out.
The two children he shares with Stella have never met their father outside of prison and she said they are “very excited” to see him.
“It’s hard to describe. We’ve been waiting for this for so long,” Stella said as she prepared for her husband’s return.
After five years in prison, seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and two years of house arrest, Assange finally concluded a marathon legal saga that spanned continents on Wednesday by pleading guilty to violating US espionage law.
The agreement with the US Justice Department required Assange to admit guilt to a single felony count but permitted him to return to his home country of Australia without any time in an American prison.
The judge sentenced him to the five years he had already spent behind bars in the United Kingdom, fighting extradition to the United States.
The plea deal resolves a criminal case involving the receipt and publication of war logs and diplomatic cables that detailed US military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Assange is banned from entering America without prior approval as part of the deal.
The hearing took place in Saipan because Assange opposed a stop in the continental US and because it is near Australia.
– More to come…