Julian Assange wins right to marry in prison while fighting extradition to US
With these shackles I thee wed.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been granted permission to marry his former lawyer in hisꦓ high-securityꦦ British prison, according to UK officials and his fiancée.
Assange, 50, had launched legal action to demand the right to marry in London’s Belmarsh Prison, where he has been in custody since 2019 🍷as 𒐪he fights US attempts to extradite him on espionage charges.
He was granted permission Thursday to wed Stella Moris, a former member of his legal team with whom he secretly had two children d𒐪uring his seven years hiding in the Ecuadoriꦫan Embassy in London.
“Good news: UK government has backed down 24h before the deadline,” Moris wrote on Twitter alongside an undated photo of them together underneath a rainbow in London.
“Julian and I now have permission to marry in Belmarsh prison. I am relieved but still angry that legal action was necessary to put a stop to the illegal interference with our basic right to marry,” she wrote.
“I am relieved that reason pr💎evailed, and I hope there will be no further interference w🐼ith our marriage,” Moris also said in a statement.
No date has been set for the wedding as Assange continues to fight ex🦩tradition to 💃the US, where he faces up to 175 years in prison.
The couple made their relationship public in April 2020, revealing that their sons, Gabriel, 4, and Max, 2, were conceived during the lawyer’s visits to Assange during his seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy, where he was avoiding extradition to Sweden on unrelated sex offenses that have since been dropped.
WikiLeaks said in a statement late Thursday that the couple had launched legal action after they “were essentially being blocked from being able to marry.”
The UK prison service conf꧟irmed Thursday that permission had been granted, denying that the couple were treated especia𓆏lly harshly.
“Mr. Assange’s application💯 was received, considered and processed in the usual way by the prison governo꧑r, as for any other prisoner,” the Prison Service said.
Assange, an Australian national, was initially arrested in Britain in 2019 for jumping bail after he was kicked out of Ecuador’s embassy.
The US government has indicted him on 18 charges relating to WikiLeaks’ 2010 release of 500,000 secret files detailing aspects of military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.
However, UK district court judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled in January that it would be “oppressive” to extradite Assange because of his serious risk of suicide and mental health deterioration.
The US is appealing the decision, with the High Court set to rule within weeks on whether to send the case back to a l𝔍ower court for fresh consideration.
Whoever loses can also ask for permission for a further, final appeal to the UK’s Supreme Court.
With Post wires
