Leaker of Govt Secrets Julian Assange Back in the Spotlight

For seven years he lived in a small apartment in the embassy, exercising on a treadmill and using a sun lamp to make up for the lack of natural light in a situation he compared to living in a space station.

It was revealed in April that Assange had fathered two children with his partner, South Africa-born lawyer Stella Moris, while at the embassy.

Moris, 37, told The Times newspaper in an interview published on Saturday that she informed Assange she was pregnant with Gabriel, now three, by writing it down on a piece of paper to avoid surveillance.

He watched the birth on livestream and the baby was smuggled into the embassy with the help of an actor friend posing as his father, she said.

Hands-on father

Moris described Assange as someone who "loves children" and a "hands-on father", who speaks to his sons regularly, although to his youngest, Max, now aged 18 months, he is a "disembodied voice on the phone".

Assange has an adult son, Daniel, who was born near Melbourne in 1980, and at least one more child, who was living in France.

Moris, who changed her name from Sara Gonzalez Devant for security reasons after getting involved with Assange, said the couple planned to marry and he proposed using a virtual-reality headset.

Assange's situation changed after the new government in Quito turned him over to British police in April 2019. He was arrested for jumping bail and jailed.

Swedish prosecutors confirmed last year they had dropped the rape investigation, saying that despite a "credible" account from the alleged victim there was insufficient evidence to proceed.

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But as he had feared, after his arrest it was revealed that Washington was charging him with violating the US Espionage Act over the 2010 leaks.

Ties with Russia?

Julian Assange was initially supported by human rights groups and newspapers that once worked with him to edit and publish US war logs.

They included a leaked video showing a US military Apache helicopter firing on and killing two journalists and several Iraqi civilians on a Baghdad street in 2007.