Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday said his country was providing assistance to Julian Assange following the news that the Wikileaks founder agreed to plead guilty in a deal with the US and that he has left the UK.
"The government is certainly aware that Australian citizen Mr Julian Assange has legal proceedings scheduled in the United States," Albanese told Australia's parliament during Question Time, calling the news a "welcomed development."
According to court documents filed on Monday, Assange was set to plead guilty to one charge of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents in return for being spared further imprisonment in the US, in a deal with the Justice Department.
Assange is expected to attend a hearing on the Pacific island of Saipan on Wednesday before returning to Australia, the court documents state. Saipan, part of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean south of Japan, is under US administration.
The deal is still to be approved by a US federal judge.
Albanese said that he would not provide "further detailed comment" as the proceedings were ongoing, but did confirm that UK High Commissioner Steven Smith "travelled with Mr Assange when he left the United Kingdom," while Australia's ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd was also providing assistance.
"The case has dragged on for too long," Albanese said. "There is nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration and we want him brought home to Australia."
"I will have more to say when these legal proceedings have concluded, which I hope will be very soon, and I will report as appropriate at that time," the prime minister said.
Wikileaks said Assange left the high-security Belmarsh prison in London on bail on Monday morning and departed the UK from Stansted Airport at 5 pm local time (1600 GMT).
Assange is accused of having stolen and published secret material from US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan together with whistleblower Chelsea Manning, putting the lives of US informants in danger.
His supporters see the Wikileaks founder as a journalist who brought war crimes to light.
British police arrested Assange in 2019 at the Ecuadorian embassy, where he had taken refuge for seven years, for failing to surrender to an earlier warrant linked to Swedish charges that were eventually dropped.
The police swooped in after Quito revoked Assange's asylum status.
