{"id":16918,"date":"2020-04-12T13:13:24","date_gmt":"2020-04-12T17:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=16918"},"modified":"2020-04-12T13:15:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-12T17:15:00","slug":"assange-secretly-fathered-two-children-in-ecuadorean-embassy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2020\/04\/12\/assange-secretly-fathered-two-children-in-ecuadorean-embassy\/","title":{"rendered":"Assange &#8216;secretly fathered two children&#8217; in Ecuadorean embassy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Julian Assange secretly fathered two children while living inside the Ecuadorean embassy in London, his partner has revealed.<\/p>\n<p>Stella Morris says she has been in a relationship with the Wikileaks founder since 2015 and has been raising their two young sons on her own.<\/p>\n<p>She spoke out amid fears over the spread of Covid-19 in Belmarsh Prison.<\/p>\n<p>He has been held there since being dragged from the Ecuadorean embassy a year ago.<\/p>\n<p>The 48-year-old Australian is now seeking bail amid concerns over his health.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a class=\"story-body__link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-11047811\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Julian Assange: Campaigner or attention seeker?<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a class=\"story-body__link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-us-canada-47874728\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">How likely is an Assange conviction in US?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ms Morris, a South African-born lawyer, told The Mail on Sunday she was revealing their union for the first time because his &#8220;life is on the brink&#8221; and she she does not believe he would &#8220;survive infection with coronavirus&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"story-body__link-external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=LgK5ZqjvC5s&amp;feature=youtu.be\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">In a video posted on Wikileaks&#8217; YouTube account, she says she met Assange<\/a>\u00a0in 2011 when she joined his legal team.<\/p>\n<p>He took refuge in the embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over a sexual assault case that has since been dropped.<\/p>\n<p>He is also fighting extradition to the United States on espionage charges.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Morris says she visited him in the embassy almost every day and &#8220;got to know Julian very well&#8221;. The couple fell in love in 2015 and got engaged two years later.<\/p>\n<p>She told the Mail on Sunday that Assange had watched both boys being born via video link and they had visited their father at the embassy.<\/p>\n<p>Three-year-old Gabriel and one-year-old Max speak to their father via video calls, she says.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Forming a family was a deliberate decision to break down those walls around him and imagine a life beyond that prison,&#8221; she says in the Wikileaks YouTube video.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/14E20\/production\/_111763558_061030231-1.jpg\" alt=\"An undated photo issued by Wikileaks shows Julian Assange with his partner Stella Morris (to his left) alongside other members of his legal team\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"media-caption__text\">An undated photo issued by Wikileaks shows Julian Assange (c) with his partner Stella Morris (second right) alongside other members of his legal team (Image: Wikileaks)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While for many people it would seem insane to start a family in that context, for us it was the sane thing to do, to keep things real.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It grounds me and when Julian sees the children it gives him a lot of peace and nurture and support. They are very happy children.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Assange was arrested on 11 April 2019 at the Ecuadorean embassy and detained for &#8220;failing to surrender to the court&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>He was sentenced to 50 weeks in jail for breaching his bail conditions.<\/p>\n<p>Assange was due to be released from HMP Belmarsh last September after serving the custody period of his jail term.<\/p>\n<p>But a judge ruled that he should remain in jail until his extradition hearing because of his &#8220;history of absconding&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Details about the children with Stella Morris were seen by the Mail in court documents as part of his US extradition case.<\/p>\n<p>Assange is believed to have other children, although little is known about them. He has an adult son, Daniel Assange, who is reportedly a software designer in Australia.<\/p>\n<p>More than a thousand UK prisoners have reported symptoms of coronavirus, official figures show.<\/p>\n<p>One inmate at HMP Belmarsh is among several have died, according to internal data confirmed by the Ministry of Justice.<\/p>\n<p>Up to 4,000 low-risk prisoners in England and Wales are to be released in an effort to control the spread of coronavirus, the government has said.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-52262075\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">Julian Assange secretly fathered two children while living inside the Ecuadorean embassy in London, his partner has revealed. Stella Morris says she has been in a relationship with the Wikileaks founder since 2015 and has <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2020\/04\/12\/assange-secretly-fathered-two-children-in-ecuadorean-embassy\/\" title=\"Assange &#8216;secretly fathered two children&#8217; in Ecuadorean embassy\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109,2,4],"tags":[6224,7116,466,302,275],"class_list":{"0":"post-16918","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headline","8":"category-news","9":"category-uk","10":"tag-belmarsh-prison","11":"tag-ecuadorean-embassy","12":"tag-julian-assange","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-wikileaks","15":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16918"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16921,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16918\/revisions\/16921"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}