Plane carrying Assange takes off from Bangkok en route to Saipan

A plane carrying Julian Assange left Bangkok Tuesday to fly the WikiLeaks founder to a court hearing in a US territory in the Pacific as part of a plea deal that will see him freed.

The flight departed the Thai capital around 9:25 pm (1425 GMT) to take Assange to the North Mariana Islands, where he is expected to plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defense information and then be freed to go to his native Australia.