Wikileaks: Julian Assange given permission to marry partner in prison
Julian Assange has been granted permission to marry his
partner Stella Moris in Belmarsh prison,
The Wikileaks founder and Ms Moris have two sons together,
who she said were conceived while he was living inside London's Ecuadorean
embassy.
The prison service said Mr Assange's application was
"considered in the usual way by the prison governor".
Ms Moris told PA she was "relieved that reason [had]
prevailed".
She added: "I hope there will be no further
interference with our marriage."
Inmates are entitled to apply to be married in prison under the Marriages Act 1983 and where applications are granted, they must meet the full costs of the marriage, with no taxpayer help.
In an interview with the Mail on Sunday last year, Ms Moris,
a South African-born lawyer, revealed that she had been in a relationship with
Mr Assange since 2015 and had been raising their two young sons on her own.
In a video posted on Wikileaks' YouTube account, she said
she had met Mr Assange in 2011 when she joined his legal team.
Ms Moris added that she had visited him in the embassy
almost every day and had "got to know Julian very well".
The couple fell in love in 2015 and got engaged two years
later.
Ms Moris said that Mr Assange had watched both boys being
born via video link and they had visited their father at the embassy.
Mr Assange, 50, continues to fight extradition to the US on
espionage charges.
He is wanted in the US on allegations of conspiracy to
obtain and disclose national defence information, following Wikileaks'
publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to the
Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
The publications include the release in April 2010 of
footage showing US soldiers shooting and killing civilians from a helicopter in
Iraq.
The Australian has been in Belmarsh Prison since 2019, when
he was carried out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London by police and arrested
for breaching his bail conditions.
He had been in the embassy since 2012, avoiding extradition to
Sweden, where he faced sex offence allegations. He has always denied those and
they were eventually dropped.
A Prison Service spokesperson said: "Mr Assange's
application was received, considered and processed in the usual way by the
prison governor, as for any other prisoner."
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