WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will finally return to Australia after spending five years in a maximum-security prison in the UK, but advocates warn his freedom may come at a cost to others.
Assange left a US court on the tropical island of Saipan a free man on Wednesday after pleading guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified defence documents. He was sentenced to time already served, as part of a plea deal and is on his way to Australia on a private chartered Bombadier jet.
Australians have long called on the US to end its pursuit of Assange.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had taken up the issue with US President Joe Biden, and politicians from across Australia's political spectrum last year went to Washington to lobby US decision-makers.
Independent MP Andrew Wilkie, a member of that delegation, was thrilled to hear Assange would soon touch down in Australia but warned the conditions of his release were "chilling".
"A precedent was set for the charging and conviction of a journalist for doing their job - that is a really alarming precedent," he told reporters in Parliament House.
"It sends a chill down the spine of journalists worldwide ... and it means out there is more work to do to push for media freedom and protections for journalists.
"At the end of the day, Julian Assange is a Walkley Award-winning Australian journalist who did his job."
After 14 years spent fighting extradition to the US for leaking a tranche of secret government documents, Assange is expected to land in Canberra on Wednesday evening.
He flew from the UK - where he had been imprisoned since 2019 - via Bangkok to the US territory of the North Marianas Islands, before his final flight home.
But this has come at a price.
His wife Stella Assange is appealing for donations after revealing he will owe the Australian government $US520,000 ($A783,000) for the charter flight.
"He was not permitted to fly commercial airlines or routes to Saipan and onward to Australia," she wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Prior to Assange's official release, Mr Albanese welcomed the legal developments.
"His case has dragged on for too long, there is nothing to be gained from his continued incarceration, and we want him brought home to Australia," he told reporters in Canberra.
But the opposition says the WikiLeaks founder should not be worshipped.
"Julian Assange is no hero, but it is a welcome thing that this has finally come to an end," opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson told Sky News.
"The reason why it's gone on for a long time is that he was evading lawful extradition requests.
"It is a credit to the United States that they are showing such leniency towards someone accused of such a serious crime."
International human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson, who defended Assange during the early days of his legal battle, said the US had been forced to capitulate ahead of a predicted change in the UK government.
"The Labour government will not readily do their bidding as the conservative government has always done," he told the Today show.
