As it happened: Freed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange lands in Australia; family, legal team holds Canberra press conference

That’s where we’ll leave our live coverage of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s court appearance and return to Australia, which ended a 14-year rollercoaster of legal and diplomatic battles.

Thanks for joining us. Here’s a quick recap of what happened today:

• WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has returned to Australia a free man after spending more than a decade in self-exile or British prison for publishing classified US military and diplomatic documents. He was released after striking a plea deal with US prosecutors.
• Assange was freed from London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison on Tuesday after 1901 days behind bars, and left the country with Australia’s UK High Commissioner, Stephen Smith.

• He travelled to the Northern Mariana Islands, a United States commonwealth in the Western Pacific, where he pleaded guilty on Wednesday morning to a single Espionage Act offence of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defence information.
• Assange left Saipan with his lawyers on a chartered flight that arrived in Canberra shortly after 7.30pm. He was greeted with applause from supporters, and embraced his wife and father.
• Stella Assange said her husband was grateful for his supporters and the federal government, but he needed time to recover from his ordeal and would speak publicly at a later date.
• Lawyers for Assange said they were thrilled he had returned to Australia but warned his prosecution was an attack on public interest journalism that should not be tolerated.

• Assange’s family says the WikiLeaks founder, who is now a convicted criminal, should never have been prosecuted and that he will seek a pardon from US President Joe Biden.
• The deal that enabled Assange’s release follows determined lobbying by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who raised Assange’s case in meetings with US President Joe Biden, and by Australian politicians from across the political spectrum.
• Assange’s release sparked condemnation and celebration across the United States, reflecting the ongoing divisions over his role in publishing the documents.

A massive crowd of Julian Assange’s supporters, including federal politicians, have packed into the lobby at the East Hotel in Canberra in hopes of catching a glimpse of the freed WikiLeaks founder.

Independent MP Zoe Daniel and Greens Senator David Shoebridge are among the politicians gathered.

Assange’s wife, Stella Assange; and lawyers Jennifer Robinson and Barry Pollack are due to hold a press conference at the hotel shortly. Assange is not expected to speak.

Assange arrived in Canberra on a chartered flight shortly after 7.30pm tonight. It was the first time he has stepped foot in Australia in 15 years after more than a decade in self-exile or British prison.

Julian Assange’s wife, Stella Assange; his father, John Shipton; and lawyers Jennifer Robinson and Barry Pollack spoke after the WikiLeaks founder returned to Australia earlier tonight.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese acknowledged people had different views about Julian Assange’s actions but said his role as prime minister “has been to firmly say that whatever the views that people have, there was no purpose to be served by this ongoing incarceration”.

Speaking in Canberra shortly after Assange’s plane touched down in the capital, Albanese said: “My job is to advocate for Australian citizens. [Australian journalist incarcerated in China] Cheng Lei, [Australian academic incarcerated in Myanmar] Sean Turnell … one of the things that my government does is, at times as well, we don’t shout, we’re not in a contest of machismo.”

“What we do is we get things done, and my government advocated strategically, patiently in a calibrated way, and we achieved this outcome.”

Albanese would not say if he would meet Assange in Canberra on Thursday, given what the Australian had been through.

“He’s been through a considerable deal. It’s up to him, when he makes a statement.”