Jonathan Head
reporting from the courthouse

The court atmosphere is very calm and business-like.

Assange looks quite relaxed and has mostly just given one-word affirmations to the judge's questions. He's answered quite confidently to every question put to him. But it's mostly just a question of saying yes.

The only time he has spoken in detail was to explain his thinking about why he leaked secret docs.

Judge Ramona Manglona has been methodical - going over every detail in this case; making sure each side is happy with the plea agreement; and that Assange understands the full implications of pleading guilty - and has the option to go to trial, if he wants.

Assange has closely followed everything the prosecution said, reading the charge document. He has disputed none of it. He appears comfortable with the deal that has been done.

Jonathan Head
Reporting from the courthouse

Court is back in session, and Judge Ramona Manglona is now weighing up the parameters of Assange's plea deal.

We're expected to hear the sentencing momentarily.

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has weighed in on this morning’s hearing, telling reporters in Canberra just now that he’ll have more to say about Assange’s case “once legal proceedings conclude”.

“Given those proceedings are happening literally in real-time it is not appropriate to provide further commentary.

“We have engaged and advocated Australia’s interest using appropriate channels to support the positive outcome," he said.

Yesterday, while addressing the nation’s parliament he described Assange’s plea deal as a “welcome development”.

Albanese raised Assange's case during a trip to Washington last year while meeting with US President Joe Biden.

As we mentioned earlier, Wikileaks says that Assange will next travel to Canberra, the capital of Australia.

His private travel from the UK to Australia via Bangkok and the Northern Mariana Islands - was paid for by the Australian government, with the campaign due to repay the costs.

The journey comes with a $520,000 (£410,000) price tag, and Wikileaks has launched a crowdfunding appeal, calling on Assange’s supporters to chip in.

“His travel to freedom comes at a massive cost,” the plea, posted on X on Tuesday, read.

The appeal is seeking to raise £520,000 in total, and has already taken in over £252,000 in donations since it launched.

Assange’s wife Stella has previously said Assange was “not permitted to fly commercial airlines or routes to Saipan and onward to Australia".

After all that detail was hashed out, Assange has just reaffirmed his guilty plea.

The judge accepts the plea, but says the court will take a 20 minute break before she hands down his sentence.

We'll have those developments for you shortly, stay with us.

Jonathan Head
Reporting from the courthouse

The prosecutor has now finished outlining his case.

He says the government doesn’t dispute Assange’s belief that his actions should have been covered by the First Amendment - which protects free speech - but the facts stand.

Assange doesn't dispute the prosecutor’s account, and the judge now confirms the prosecution intends to dismiss other charges against Assange.

The prosecutor has now turned to describing the actions of Chelsea Manning, who leaked documents to Assange.

She used US government computers to download thousands of documents including 90,000 Afghanistan military activity reports and 400,000 from Iraq, and then sent them to the Wikileaks founder.

Referring to messages between Manning and Assange, the prosecutor again emphasised Assange knew the documents were top secret.

They also said many of the leaked papers were not redacted enough to protect individuals exposed by them.

Jonathan Head
Reporting from the courthouse

Judge Ramona Manglona is now running through the specific details of the "conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information" charge - which is the felony Assange will plead guilty to under the terms of his deal.

Assange is telling the courtroom that when he published the classified documents that had been leaked to him in 2010, he was working as a journalist and believed he would be protected by the first amendment.

He also said he believes the Espionage Act - which he is being charged under - conflicts with the first amendment.

The prosecutor is now outlining the government's case again, and calling on Assange to listen carefully so that he can challenge any details he thinks are wrong.

They're going through how the WikiLeaks founder actively enouraged leaks of classified information - saying he told leakers that "top secret means nothing".

Jonathan Head
Reporting from the courthouse

The prosecutor in Assange's case is now talking about Chelsea Manning - the former US Army Intelligence analyst who supplied Wikileaks with the confidential documents they would go on to publish in 2010.

They’re reminding the court that she was sentenced to 35 years in prison in 2013, before her sentence was commuted to seven years by President Obama.

Turning back to Assange, the prosecutor is making it clear that if the Wikileaks founder takes this deal his presumption of innocence comes to an end, and that he will waive his right to an appeal.

The US has almost 100 district courts - but this is the country's smallest, its youngest and the furthest from the capital, Washington DC.

The US territory in the western Pacific was chosen due to Assange's opposition to traveling to the mainland US and for its proximity to his native Australia, prosecutors have said.

Jonathan Head
Reporting from the courthouse

We’re inside the courthouse now, watching Assange’s sentencing via a live feed in an overflow room because the court is so full.

So far, Judge Ramona Manglona - who is presiding over Assange's appearance - has run through the charges he’s facing and asked him if he understands all the details.

She’s also making sure he understands the terms of this plea agreement, and whether anyone threatened or persuaded him to accept it.

Lastly, she has reminded him that he has the right not to accept the terms of this deal and that he can still withdraw his guilty plea. Pleading guilty means he will have to face consequences like being unable to enter the US.

We'll bring you more when we have it.

According to Wikileaks, Assange will be landing in Australia's capital, Canberra, once his hearing wraps up in the Northern Mariana Islands.

"Expected to depart in 2 hours, 58 minutes. To Canberra, Australia. Flight VJT199," the organisation wrote in a post on X a short time ago, sharing a tracker of the flight.

According to the tracker, he's due to land at around 18:41 Australian Eastern Standard Time (08:41 GMT) on Wednesday.

Julian Assange has officially pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents in court.

His sentence is due to be announced shortly.

Tiffanie Turnbull
BBC News, Sydney

Image source, Getty Images

The presence of two men at court with Assange in the Northern Mariana Islands hints at the massive diplomatic effort to get the Wikileaks founder there.

Front and centre was Kevin Rudd, a former Australian prime minister - and at one point its foreign minister - who is now the country's ambassador to the US.

Australian political scientists say foreign affairs and diplomacy were always Rudd's strength as a politician - something he likely put to work in securing Assange's release.

Someone else thought to have been key to arranging a plea deal between Assange and the US government is Australia's High Commissioner to the UK, Stephen Smith - who oddly enough was Rudd's foreign minister between 2007 and 2010.

We still know fairly little about the negotiations around the deal, but diplomatic sources said Smith "did a lot of the heavy lifting, making it a personal thing to get this over the line".

Simon Jackman - an honorary Professor of US Studies at the University of Sydney - told the BBC that Smith is "intimately familiar with all the details" and "exceptionally well equipped to handle an issue of this of sensitivity among alliance partners".

Read more about how the deal was done here.

Assange's court hearing is reported to be under way, according to the Reuters news agency.

He is expected to plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defence information as part of a US plea bargain.

In return, he will be allowed to walk free and return to his native Australia.

Stay with us as we bring you all the latest updates.

Nomia Iqbal
BBC News, Washington

Image source, Getty Images

The deal between the US government and Assange was agreed just last week - on Wednesday 19 June.

We are yet to find out exactly why the US took this rather dramatic reversal in policy.

Three years ago, the US justice department said it would pursue extradition, although President Joe Biden did indicate in April he was considering Australia’s request to resolve the legal limbo.

We are, of course, in a presidential election year and it’s hard not to see everything through that lens.

Biden's opponent Donald Trump said last month he would consider pardoning Assange if he won November’s election.

The decision is dividing lawmakers here in both Democratic and Republican parties. There are those who consider Assange a menace who endangered soldiers’ lives. Others see him as a free speech hero who simply exposed US war secrets to the public.

We're still waiting for the Wikileaks founder to appear in court in Saipan - the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands - to formalise his plea deal with the US.

Here he is walking into court about an hour ago.

Image source, Reuters

Assange's wife Stella has given us some insight into how he is coping with being out in the world after years spent in London's high-security Belmarsh prison.

"I watch this and think how overloaded his senses must be walking through the press scrum," she writes on X, referring to footage showing Assange arriving at court in Saipan to formalise his plea deal with the US.

Just months ago, Stella Assange told the BBC her husband was extremely weak mentally and physically and that she did not think he could survive being extradited from the UK to the US.

James Landale
Diplomatic correspondent

Image source, EPA

To his supporters, Assange is a valiant campaigner for truth. To his critics, he is a publicity seeker who has endangered lives by putting a mass of sensitive information into the public domain.

Assange is described by those who have worked with him as intense, driven and highly intelligent, with an exceptional ability to crack computer codes.

He set up Wikileaks, which publishes confidential documents and images, in 2006, making headlines around the world in April 2010 when it released footage showing US soldiers shooting dead 18 civilians from a helicopter in Iraq.

But later that year the Australian was detained in the UK - and later bailed - after Sweden issued an international arrest warrant over allegations of sexual assault.

Assange argued it was a ploy to ultimately extradite to the US to face espionage charges - kicking off a legal saga which has now spanned 14 years, embroiled five countries and reached some of the world's highest courts.

Read more about this here.

Image source, Reuters

We've just seen footage of the Wikileaks founder walking through the doors of the court in Saipan where he is expected to formalise his plea deal with the US shortly.

Assange was seen getting out of a car, accompanied by Australia’s ambassador to the US and former prime minister Kevin Rudd.

He then walked into the building and was filmed going through security scanners.