Julian Assange granted permission to marry partner Stella Moris in Belmarsh prison

WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, has been granted permission to marry his partner in Belmarsh prison, London. According to BBC, Assange has been held in UK’s maximum-security prison since 2019 after the United States took legal action to extradite him. It is to mention that after applying to the prison governor, the 50-year-old was granted permission to marry his partner Stella Moris, who he met in 2011 while living in the Ecuadorean embassy in London. The couple, who fell in love in 2015 and got engaged two years, have two children together, named Max, 2, and Gabriel, 4. 

As per the media outlet, a prison spokesperson said that Assange’s application was received, considered and processed in the usual way by the prison governor. Separately, while speaking to the PA news agency, Moris said that she is “relieved” that the permission was granted, but she also hoped that there will be no further interference with the marriage. For now, no date has yet been set for the wedding. 

It is worth mentioning that the couple was granted permission to marry after they filed a lawsuit against the prison governor and Justice Secretary Dominic Raab, accusing them of preventing a wedding from being held. Moris had said that she, along with Assange, was suing because “creepy” elements of the UK government are “illegally blocking and delaying” their marriage by effectively giving the US government veto power. Slandering the administration further, Moris said that this behaviour was “unfair, irrational and sinister”.  

Julian Assange case 

Assange, an Australian citizen, was arrested by police after spending five years in the embassy, where he sought political asylum as he fought to avoid extradition to Sweden, fearing he would be taken to the US for questioning over the activities of WikiLeaks. Assange is slapped with 18 charges in the United States, including under the Espionage Act, for "conspiring" to gain access to US military secrets between January and May 2010. 

The 50-year-old was jailed for a year for skipping bail. However, he was kept in Belmarsh while a lengthy legal case was mounted by the United States. Earlier this year, a judge refused a request from America to extradite Assange but an appeal was also lodged, the outcome of which is still pending. 

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