SAIPAN: An aircraft carrying WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has left Saipan after he pleaded guilty Wednesday to obtaining and publishing US military secrets.

The plea in the US Pacific commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands concluded a drawn-out legal saga that spanned continents.

The agreement with the US.Justice Department required Assange to admit guilt to a single felony count but permitted him to return to his home country of Australia without any time in an American prison.

The judge sentenced him to the five years he'd already spent behind bars in the United Kingdom, fighting extradition to the United States.

His plane was heading to Australia.