WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's plea deal hearing for violating US espionage law began on Wednesday in a courtroom on the US Pacific island territory of Saipan where he is expected to walk free after a deal with US prosecutors.
Assange, 52, arrived at the court house in a white SUV. He was wearing a black suit and smiled as he walked past security with his team and Australia's ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd.
Dozens of media from around the world gathered outside the courtroom to cover the proceedings. Media is not allowed inside the courtroom to cover the hearing.
"I watch this and think how overloaded his senses must be, walking through the press scrum after years of sensory depravation and the four walls of his high security Belmarsh prison cell," Stella Assange, the wife of WikiLeaks founder said on social media platform X.
Assange agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defense documents, according to filings in the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.