Assange ‘Secretly’ Fathered 2 Children While In Embassy, Partner Urges Bail Over COVID-19 Fears

Julian Assange secretly fathered two children during his almost seven years of political asylum inside Ecuador’s embassy in London, The Mail on Sunday and WikiLeaks revealed Sunday. 

Stella Morris, a 37-year old South African-born lawyer, has been in a relationship with the WikiLeaks founder since 2015, but the couple knew each other prior to his fleeing US and Swedish authorities to the confines of the embassy (she joined his legal team in 2011). Morris had been working as part of the Assange’s defense team and visited him daily inside the closely surveilled embassy, and after two years the couple got engage. 

“Gabriel, aged three, and his one-year-old brother Max were conceived while their father was hiding out to avoid extradition to America, where he faces espionage charges over the leaking of thousands of classified US intelligence documents,” The Daily Mail reports.

Morris has since been raising the two children on her own and says she decided to go public about his family life to gain public support amid fears over the spread of Covid-19 in Belmarsh Prison, where he’s been held awaiting a US extradition case after being dragged by UK police from the Ecuadorian embassy a year ago.

The harsh Belmarsh coniditions, where some of Britain’s most notorious criminals and terrorists are held, have taken a severe toll on Assange’s health.

In a video posted to WikiLeaks’ official social media accounts, Morris expressed that already her fiancé’s “life is on the brink” and that she fears he would not “survive infection with coronavirus”.

Assange watched the children’s birth via video-link while in the embassy, and over the years communicated through video calls and the children were able to make visits to their father in person at the embassy.

“Forming a family was a deliberate decision to break down those walls around him and imagine a life beyond that prison,” Morris said in Wikileaks YouTube video. “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.”

“We fell in love and this is a person I knew well by then; the person I know the most in this world,” Morris said of their early relationship. “He’s extraordinary. He’s generous and he’s very tender and loving.”

Morris also revealed the following, according to a summary of highlights by The Daily Mail:

• Assange watched both children being born in London hospitals via live video link and met Gabriel when he was smuggled into the embassy;
• They believe American intelligence agencies tried to steal Gabriel’s DNA from a nappy after becoming suspicious that Assange was his father;
• The couple will marry behind bars unless Assange is released;
• Both boys, who are British citizens, have visited their father in prison;
• The Duchess of Beaufort, the former actress Tracy Ward, and British rapper M.I.A are the children’s godmothers.

“The news will come as a bombshell to Assange’s friends and enemies since he was widely understood to have led a near-monastic life since entering the embassy in 2012,” the Mail added.

Julian Assange’s newly revealed partner, mother of their 2 young children, urges UK government to bail him and other vulnerable prisoners as #coronavirus sweeps prisons#FreePress#DontExtraditeAssange #coronavirus #COVID19 https://t.co/UAe8eMESef

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 11, 2020

“Instead, as The Mail on Sunday’s exclusive pictures show, he was a hands-on father, playing with his baby son under the noses of his increasingly hostile Ecuadorian hosts and the 24-hour a day scrutiny of US intelligence agencies,” the report added.

Another shocking part of the report relating to alleged US intelligence attempts to gain information on the family is as follows: “Assange did not meet his newest son until May when Miss Morris was allowed into Belmarsh with both boys. By then intimate footage of Max’s birth, shot on a GoPro camera by a friend, had been seized by the US along with Assange’s legal documents from his quarters inside the embassy.“

Assange also has an adult son, Daniel Assange, who is believed to be a software designer in Australia.