Julian Assange has been freed following a plea deal with the US justice system, the media organisation he founded announced on Monday.
The 52-year-old Australian has left the high-security Belmarsh prison, where he had been serving a sentence for the last five years.
According to WikiLeaks, Assange was set free by the British judiciary at Stansted Airport, London, on Monday morning. By Monday afternoon, he was on a plane, leaving the UK behind.
His liberation came after the WikiLeaks founder agreed to plead guilty to violating the US Espionage Act. He is expected to appear in a courtroom in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory, in the coming days. His guilty plea, to be finalised on Wednesday, will resolve any outstanding legal matters Assange has with the U.S. government.
US Justice Department prosecutors recommended a prison sentence of 62 months as part of the plea agreement, according to CBS News.
Under the plea deal, the roughly five years Assange spent in prison in the UK while fighting extradition to the United States will be taken into consideration.
He will therefore not be required to spend time in a US prison.
