Assange 'secretly fathered two children', says his partner

Julian Assange secretly fathered two children while living inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, his partner has revealed as she filed a bail plea in a UK court to seek the release of the Wikileaks co-founder amid growing health fears due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Stella Moris, who gave birth to Gabriel, 3, and Max, 1, after what she said was a strong intellectual and emotional bond developed with Assange, said there were now genuine fears for his health as he remains behind bars at Belmarsh prison in London fighting extradition to the US on espionage charges.

Moris, 37, a South Africa-born lawyer, issued a plea for Assange to be released from prison.

"My close relationship with Julian has been the opposite of how he is viewed of reserve, respect for each other and attempts to shield each other from some of the nightmares that have surrounded our lives together," notes Moris, according to a Sunday Telegraph' report.

In a statement to the courts supporting an application for bail, the newspaper says that Moris reveals that she met Assange in 2011 when she was a legal researcher, and was asked to look into Swedish legal theory and practice.

"Over time Julian and I developed a strong intellectual and emotional bond. He became my best friend and I become his," she writes.

The friendship developed, and despite the "extraordinary circumstances", a close relationship began in 2015. The lawyer said she was making the statement now because their lives were "on the brink" and she feared Assange could die as he is in isolation for 23 hours a day and all visits have stopped.

Assange's extradition hearing is fixed for May 18 after a judge at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London rejected calls for an adjournment until September over what his legal team said were "insuperable" difficulties preparing his case because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The charges against Assange under the US Espionage Act accuse him of soliciting and publishing classified information and conspiring to hack into a government computer. Assange has consistently denied the allegations and his supporters have accused the US and UK governments of an attack on free speech.

The 48-year-old Wikileaks co-founder had to serve a sentence in Britain for breach of his bail conditions after he spent seven years at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he had sought asylum in 2012, which was withdrawn in April last year.