Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is released from U.S. custody after striking a plea deal and is set to return to Australia.

• In 2010, WikiLeaks gained international recognition with the release of a 2007 U.S. helicopter attack footage that resulted in the deaths of two Reuters journalists and others in Baghdad.
• The 52-year-old has been battling extradition for more than a decade.

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, was released on Wednesday after pleading guilty in a U.S. court in the Northern Mariana Islands to a felony charge for publishing U.S. military secrets.

Assange's return to Australia has been urged by the Australian government.

Despite differing opinions on Mr. Assange's actions, the case has lasted too long. No benefits are gained from his continued imprisonment, and we want him to return to Australia. We have advocated for Australia's interests through all available channels and have been doing so since the beginning, as stated by Albanese in Parliament on Tuesday.

Assange, a 52-year-old man, has been fighting extradition for over a decade. During this time, he has spent seven years in self-exile in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and the last five years in Belmarsh, a high-security prison located outside of the U.K. capital.

Assange was wanted in the U.S. on 18 charges, including 17 under the Espionage Act and one under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He faced up to 175 years in prison after WikiLeaks published hundreds of thousands of leaked confidential military files and diplomatic documents related to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

In 2010, WikiLeaks gained international recognition with the release of a 2007 U.S. helicopter attack footage that resulted in the deaths of two Reuters journalists and others in Baghdad.

Washington was embarrassed by the disclosures made after the high-profile release of classified files, which numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

-CNBC's Sam Meredith contributed to this article.