WATCH: Wikileaks’ Julian Assange Reunited With Wife On Arrival In Australia After Accepting Plea Deal

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange kissed his wife and greeted supporters as he arrived back in Australia Wednesday after a US court in Saipan freed him under a plea deal, ending a grueling 14-year legal battle.

The 52-year-old landed in Canberra’s RAAF base to applause and cheers just hours after he pleaded guilty in the U.S. Pacific island territory of Saipan to espionage charges for obtaining and publishing U.S. military secrets in 2010.

During the three-hour hearing , District Judge Ramona Manglona sentenced Assange to five years and two months, equivalent to his time in UK prisons fighting extradition.

“With this pronouncement, it appears that you will be able to walk out of this courtroom a free man,” she told him.

The government withdrew its extradition request and dropped all remaining charges. Assange was also banned from traveling to the U.S. without permission.

Assange boarded a private jet and made his way to Australia.

The decision was hailed as a “welcome development” by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese , who also said that Assange’s prolonged incarceration had no further benefit.

Former Ecuadorian diplomat Fidel Narvaez , who granted Assange asylum in London, celebrated the release. However, he noted the harsh precedent for journalism: “Who will want to replicate what Julian Assange and WikiLeaks did if they know what is going to come after them for publishing the truth?”

The Wikileaks founder’s wife Stella Assange , who campaigned for years for his freedom, expressed her relief on social media, simply writing: “Home.”

In a further statement to journalists, she said : “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. I ask you – please – to give us space, to give us privacy. To find our place. To let our family be a family before he can speak again at a time of his choosing.”

Of the case, she added: “I think that it revealed … how uncomfortable United States government is, in fact, of having these arguments aired, because this case – the fact is that this case is an attack on journalism.”