WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange returned home to Australia to start life as a free man Wednesday after admitting he revealed US defence secrets in a deal that unlocked the door to his London prison cell.

Assange landed on a chilly Canberra evening in a private jet, the final stage of an international drama that led him from a five-year stretch in the high-security Belmarsh prison in Britain to a courtroom in a US Pacific island territory and, finally, home.