Julian Assange walks free after pleading guilty to US espionage charge in Saipan court

The WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has walked free from a court in the US Pacific island territory of Saipan, after pleading guilty to violating US espionage law, in a deal that left him free to return home to Australia and brought an end to an extraordinary 14-year legal saga.

On Wednesday, the US’s smallest and most remote federal district court accepted a plea deal reached between Assange and the US government, under terms which required him to admit guilt to one criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents.

In return he was sentenced to time served, with no supervisory period or financial penalty, due to time already served in Belmarsh prison in London. He flew out of Saipan, headed for Canberra, at lunchtime on Wednesday.

Related: From a plea deal to a 2am prison call: how Julian Assange finally gained freedom

His release ends a legal saga that spanned more than a decade, in which Assange spent five years in the high-security jail and seven years at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, battling extradition to the US, where he faced 18 criminal charges.

Speaking to reporters outside the Saipan court, his lawyers called the prosecution “unprecedented” and an assault on free speech, but said it was time the fight came to an end.

Immediately after the three-hour hearing, the US government withdrew its extradition request from the UK, dropped all remaining charges pending in the US, and banned Assange from returning to the US without permission. He headed straight to the airport and was due to arrive on Australian soil at 7.30pm (1030AM GMT).

Assange, who had flown to Saipan from London, arrived at court in a grey suit accompanied by the Australian high commissioner to the UK, Stephen Smith, and the Australian ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd. He was greeted by a hoard of foreign and local media but took no questions.

The justice department agreed to hold the hearing on the remote island due to Assange’s opposition to travelling to the US mainland and because of its proximity to Australia.

During the hearing, Assange said he had believed the US first amendment, which protects free speech, shielded his activities.

“Working as a journalist I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified in order to publish that information,” he told the court. “I believed the first amendment protected that activity but I accept that it was … a violation of the espionage statute.”

The US government attorney Matthew McKenzie said Assange’s opinions of the first amendment and espionage act did not align with the facts.

“We reject those sentiments but accept that he believes them,” McKenzie said, detailing the extensive information that WikiLeaks had published or obtained from its source, Chelsea Manning, who was sentenced to 35 years in prison for her act but served seven after the sentence was commuted by then president Barack Obama.

In the end, the chief US district judge Ramona V Manglona accepted Assange’s guilty plea and released him without supervision due to time already served.

Closing the hearing, she said: “With this pronouncement it appears you will be able to walk out of this courtroom a free man. I hope there will be some peace restored.” Assange, appearing emotional, hugged his legal team.

Speaking afterwards, Assange’s lawyer Barry Pollack called the prosecution “unprecedented” and an assault on free speech, but said it was time the fight came to an end. WikiLeaks’ work would continue, he said.

Asked how long it took to reach the agreement, Pollack said: “Sixty-two months in Belmarsh prison.”

Jennifer Robinson, a senior and long-serving member of Assange’s legal team, thanked his supporters, including the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese.

“When Australian officials were making outreach to the US, they knew that they were acting with the full authority of the prime minister of Australia,” she said.

“It is a huge relief to Julian Assange, to his family, to his friends, to his supporters and to us and to everyone who believes in free speech around the world that he can now return home to Australia and be reunited with his family.”

WikiLeaks said Assange would travel to Canberra, where he will be reunited with his family.

Assange’s father, John Shipton, who has waged a decade-long campaign to free his son, told Reuters : “My faith has never, ever, ever died. That Julian can come home to Australia and see his family regularly and do the ordinary things of life is a treasure. Life measured amongst the beauty of the ordinary is the essence of life.”

The plea deal, which was disclosed on Monday, marked the end of a transnational legal fight over Assange’s fate. His actions had divided opinions, with some, including successive US administrations, accusing him of endangering lives. Others hailed him as a hero for exposing US military wrongdoings in Iraq and Afghanistan by publishing leaked documents provided by Manning.

“This isn’t something that has happened in the last 24 hours,” Albanese told a news conference. This is something that has been considered, patient, worked through in a calibrated way, which is how Australia conducts ourselves.”

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 and which were later dropped by Swedish authorities.

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.