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òòò½ÊÓƵsange embraced his wife Stella òòò½ÊÓƵsange and father John Shipton who were waiting on the tarmac, but avoided media at a news conference less than than two hours after he landed.

"Julian wanted me to sincerely thank everyone. He wanted to be here. But you have to understand what he's been through. He needs time. He needs to recuperate and this is a process." Stella òòò½ÊÓƵsange told reporters.

òòò½ÊÓƵsange was accused of receiving and publishing hundreds of thousands of war logs and diplomatic cables that included details of U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. His activities drew an outpouring of support from press freedom advocates, who heralded his role in bringing to light military conduct that might otherwise have been concealed from view and warned of a chilling effect on journalists. Among the files published by WikiLeaks was a video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.

The case came to a surprise end in a most unusual setting with òòò½ÊÓƵsange, 52, entering his plea in a U.S. district court in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands. The American commonwealth in the Pacific is relatively close to òòò½ÊÓƵsange's native Australia and accommodated his desire to avoid entering the continental United States.

Albanese said òòò½ÊÓƵsange told him during their phone call he was looking forward to playing with his sons, conceived while the father was in self-exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for seven years.

"He described it as a surreal and happy moment, his landing here in our national capital, Canberra," Albanese told reporters in Parliament House. "I had a very warm discussion with him this evening. He was very generous in his praise of the Australian government's efforts."

Robinson said she became "very emotional" when she overheard òòò½ÊÓƵsange's conversation with the prime minister.

"Julian thanked him and the team and told the prime minister that he had saved his life. And I don't think that that's an exaggeration," Robinson said.

òòò½ÊÓƵsange's British court hearings in which he fought extradition to the United States had heard evidence of his failing health and potential risk for self-harm in the U.S. penal system.

òòò½ÊÓƵsange was accompanied on the flights by Australian Ambassador to the United States Kevin Rudd and High Commissioner to the United Kingdom Stephen Smith, both of whom played key roles in negotiating his freedom with London and Washington.

The flights were paid for by the "òòò½ÊÓƵsange team," Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said, adding his government played a role in facilitating the transport.

Albanese told Parliament that òòò½ÊÓƵsange's freedom, after he spent five years in a British prison fighting extradition to the U.S., was the result of his government's "careful, patient and determined work."

It is unclear where òòò½ÊÓƵsange will go from Canberra and what his future plans are. His South African-born lawyer wife and mother of his two children, Stella òòò½ÊÓƵsange, has been in Australia for days awaiting his release.

Another of Julian òòò½ÊÓƵsange's lawyers, Barry Pollack, expected his client would continue vocal campaigning.

"WikiLeaks's work will continue and Mr. òòò½ÊÓƵsange, I have no doubt, will be a continuing force for freedom of speech and transparency in government," Pollack said.

òòò½ÊÓƵsange's father John Shipton said ahead of his son's arrival that he hoped that his first-born child was coming home to the "great beauty of ordinary life."

"He will be able to spend quality time with his wife, Stella, and his two children, be able to walk up and down the beach and feel the sand through his toes in winter, that lovely chill," Shipton said.

The plea deal required òòò½ÊÓƵsange to admit guilt to a single felony count but also permitted him to return to Australia without any time in an American prison. The judge sentenced him to the five years he'd already spent behind bars in the U.K. fighting extradition to the U.S. on an Espionage Act indictment that could have carried a lengthy prison sentence in the event of a conviction. He was holed up for seven years before that in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

The conclusion enables both sides to claim a degree of satisfaction.

The Justice Department, facing a defendant who had already served substantial jail time, was able to resolve òòò½ÊÓƵ” without trial òòò½ÊÓƵ” a case that raised thorny legal issues and that might never have reached a jury at all given the plodding pace of the extradition process. òòò½ÊÓƵsange, for his part, signaled a begrudging contentment with the resolution, saying in court that though he believed the Espionage Act contradicted the First Amendment, he accepted the consequences of soliciting classified information from sources for publication.

The plea deal, disclosed Monday night in a sparsely detailed Justice Department letter, represents the latest òòò½ÊÓƵ” and presumably final òòò½ÊÓƵ” chapter in a court fight involving the eccentric Australian computer expert who has been celebrated by supporters as a transparency crusader but lambasted by national security hawks who insist that his conduct put lives at risks and strayed far beyond the bounds of traditional journalism duties.

Prosecutors alleged that òòò½ÊÓƵsange teamed with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to obtain the records, including by conspiring to crack a Defense Department computer password, and published them without regard to American national security. Names of human sources who provided information to U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan were among the details exposed, prosecutors have said.

The indictment was unsealed in 2019, but òòò½ÊÓƵsange's legal woes long predated the criminal case and continued well past it.

Weeks after the release of the largest document cache in 2010, a Swedish prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for òòò½ÊÓƵsange based on one woman's allegation of rape and another's allegation of molestation. òòò½ÊÓƵsange has long maintained his innocence, and the investigation was later dropped.

He presented himself in 2012 to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he claimed asylum on the grounds of political persecution, and spent the following seven years in self-exile there, welcoming a parade of celebrity visitors and making periodic appearances from the building's balcony to address supporters.

In 2019, his hosts revoked his asylum, allowing British police to arrest him. He remained locked up for the last five years while the Justice Department sought to extradite him, in a process that encountered skepticism from British judges who worried about how òòò½ÊÓƵsange would be treated by the U.S.

Ultimately, though, the resolution sparing òòò½ÊÓƵsange prison time in the U.S. contradicts years of ominous warnings by òòò½ÊÓƵsange and his supporters that the American criminal justice system would expose him to unduly harsh treatment, including potentially the death penalty òòò½ÊÓƵ” something prosecutors never sought.

Last month, òòò½ÊÓƵsange won the right to appeal an extradition order after his lawyers argued that the U.S. government provided "blatantly inadequate" assurances that he would have the same free speech protections as an American citizen if extradited from Britain.

His wife, Stella òòò½ÊÓƵsange, told the BBC from Australia that it had been "touch and go" over 72 hours whether the deal would go ahead but she felt "elated" at the news.

òòò½ÊÓƵsange on Monday had left the London prison where he has spent the last five years after being granted bail during a secret hearing last week.