WikiLeaks’ Assange weds fiancée in London prison ceremony
Stella Moris poses for the media and for supporters as she arrives to marry her partner the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a small wedding service to be held inside the high-security Belmarsh Prison, in south east London, Wednesday,March 23, 2022. Assange, who is in a legal battle over a decision to extradite him to the U.S. to face spying charges, has been held at Belmarsh Prison since 2019, when he was arrested for skipping bail during a separate legal battle. Before that, he spent seven years inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has wed his fiancée at a small ceremony in the London prison where he is held.
Assange, 50, has been held in the high security Belmarsh prison in southeast London since 2019 on a series of charges related to WikiLeaks’ publication of a huge trove of classified documents more than a decade ago.
Supporters said Assange and Stella Moris were allowed four guests and two witnesses in attendance for Wednesday’s ceremony.
Moris posed for photos with her and Assange’s two young sons as they arrived outside the prison. She wore a wedding dress and veil embroidered with messages from friends and family. The dress was designed by British designer Vivienne Westwood, who is among Assange’s more vocal and high-profile supporters.
Westwood also designed a tartan kilt for Assange, who was not pictured.
“Every part of this private event is being intensely policed, from our guest list to the wedding picture,” Moris wrote in the Guardian newspaper on Wednesday ahead of the wedding.
“This is not a prison wedding, it is a declaration of love and resilience in spite of the prison walls, in spite of the political persecution, in spite of the arbitrary detention, in spite of the harm and harassment inflicted on Julian and our family,” she wrote.
Last week Britain’s Supreme Court refused Assange’s appeal against a High Court decision to extradite him to the U.S. to face spying charges.
That development narrows Assange’s options, but his defense team may still seek to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights or challenge the original judge’s other findings. They could write to the British Home Secretary in the coming weeks before she makes a decision on his extradition.
Assange denies wrongdoing and his supporters, including Amnesty International, argue that his extradition is politically motivated. They maintain he was entitled to First Amendment protections of freedom of speech for publishing documents that exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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