WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, has agreed to plead guilty to a single felony count of illegally obtaining and disclosing national security material in exchange for his release from British prison.

The development ends his long and bitter standoff with the United States.

Barring any last-minute snags, the deal would bring an end to the prolonged battle that began after Mr Assange became an alternative celebrated and reviled for revealing state secrets in the 2010s.

In a brief court filing made public on Monday, Mr Assange, 52, was granted his request to appear before a judge at one of the more remote outposts of the federal judiciary, the courthouse in Saipan, capital of Northern Mariana Islands.

He is also expected to be sentenced to about five years – the equivalent of the time he served in Britain.

It was a fitting final twist in the case against Mr Assange, who nearly opposed extradition to the U.S mainland.

Although, the islands are in the United States Commonwealth in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and much closer to Mr Assange’s country home of Australia.

WikiLeaks said Mr Assange had left London, shortly after the deal was disclosed.

He’s however scheduled to appear in Saipen by 9 a.m. local time on Wednesday.

Matthew J. McKenzie, an official in the Justice Department’s counterterrorism division, wrote in a letter to the judge in the case that Mr Assange is expected to fly back to Australia “at the conclusion of the proceedings.”

Early Tuesday, Mr Assange’s wife, Stella, posted a video of her husband signing paperwork and boarding a plane.

In 2010, Mr Assange rose to international prominence when WikiLeaks released diplomatic and military files related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan leaked by Chelsea Manning, an Army intelligence analyst.

His troubles started in 2012 when he fled to the Ecuadorean Embassy in London to escape extradition to Sweden, where he faced an inquiry into accusations of rape and sexual assault that were later dropped.

Mr Assange remained in the embassy for seven years, until he was ejected in 2019.

The U.S. later unsealed an indictment against Mr Assange and sought his extradition, with prosecutors accusing him of violating the Espionage Act for his role in the 2010 disclosures and of conspiring to hack into a Pentagon computer network.

He was, however, sentenced to 50 weeks in jail in London for breaching bail conditions related to the rape inquiry and remained at Belmarsh Prison, where he married his longtime partner in 2022.