London, March 23
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange married his lawyer fiancée on Wednesday in Belmarsh Prison in south-east London, where he is being held as he fights against being extradited to the US on charges of the alleged leak of classified documents.
Assange, 50, and his South Africa-born partner Stella Moris, 38, have two sons together – four-year-old Gabriel and two-year-old Max.
Moris, dressed in a wedding gown designed by British designer and Assange supporter Dame Vivienne Westwood, arrived at the prison with her sons and Assange’s father Richard and brother Gabriel.
Westwood also designed a kilt for the groom, as a nod to his Scottish heritage.
“Today is my wedding day. I will marry the love of my life,” Moris wrote in The Guardian ahead of the small ceremony held under strict prison rules.
“My husband to be is the father of our two sons, he is a wonderful man, intelligent and funny, he has a deep-seated sense of right and wrong and he is known the world over for his work as a courageous publisher,” she said.
“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. Their torment only makes our love grow stronger,” she said.
Moris claimed that behind the scenes, the couple have been locked in a dispute with the UK Ministry of Justice and prison authorities, who have denied their proposed witnesses and a photographer for the event because they are journalists.
“The prison states that our wedding picture is a security risk because it could end up in social media or the press. How absurd,” she writes, adding that Assange’s family will continue to fight for his “freedom”.
