Julian Assange plans to swim ‘every day' and eat 'real food' following prison release
Stella Assange said the couple's children were 'jumping on the sofa' with excitement after hearing of her husband's release, ITV News Correspondent Emma Murphy reports
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will take a dip in the sea, get some proper rest and try much-missed food as “a free man,” his wife has revealed in the wake of his release.
On Monday, the 52-year-old left the British prison from where he had been fighting against extradition to the US for the past five years.
He had sought refuge at Ecuador’s London embassy for nearly seven years before that, in a bid to avoid spending the rest of his life behind bars.
His wife, Stella Assange, on Thursday offered a glimpse of how her husband is planning to return to normal life, as she appealed to the public to give him space to “rest and recover”.
“He is just savouring freedom for the first time in 14 years,” she said. “Julian plans to swim in the ocean every day. He plans to sleep in a real bed, he plans to taste real food, and he plans to enjoy his freedom.”
Stella Assange wed the WikiLeaks founder while he was incarcerated at London’s Belmarsh prison in 2022.
They have two children together, but his wife says Assange has yet to be united with them.
“But they were very excited when they found out that daddy was coming home,” she said. “I had to tell them gradually. So, they were very, very excited.”
US officials had long pursued Assange, claiming that he and his whistleblowing organisation endangered lives and put national security at risk by releasing mass tranches of sensitive classified material related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As part of the plea deal, Assange ultimately pled guilty to one charge of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information, as opposed to the 18 counts he faced originally. In exchange, he was given a “time served” sentence and allowed to fly onwards to Australia.
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