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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange made a rare public appearance as he attended Pope Francis’s funeral.
Mr Assange could be seen in St Peter’s Square among approximately 400,000 mourners in remembering the late pope on Saturday.
Around 170 world leaders came together at St Peter’s Basilica for the ceremony after Pope Francis died on the morning of Easter Monday from a stroke and irreversible heart failure.
Wikileaks shared a tribute to the pontiff in his memory, as it wrote on social media: “Pope Francis never stopped championing peace, compassion, and justice. A true ally in the fight for Julian Assange’s freedom. May he rest in peace.”
The activist was photographed with his wife Stella and their two sons in St Peter’s Square as they paid their respects to the late pope.
The pontiff had expressed his solidarity with Mr Assange while he was in HMP Belmarsh, according to Mrs Assange, who has previously spoken about how Pope Francis had written to her husband while he was in prison.
Francis even proposed to grant him asylum at the Vatican.
She recalled that the pope had sent a letter to Mr Assange in March 20221 during a particularly difficult period.
“He has provided great solace and comfort and we are extremely appreciative for his reaching out to our family in this way”, she told AP in 2023. “He understands that Julian is suffering and is concerned.”
At the time, Assange had been in Belmarsh since 2019, fighting extradition to the United States where he faced up to a 175-year sentence on espionage charges for publishing classified military and diplomatic cables through WikiLeaks.
The Vatican released no details of the private audience besides confirming it had happened. Mrs Assange said she and Francis spoke in Spanish as she showed him photos of her wedding to Mr Assange.
She called the audience “overwhelming” and noted that she brought along her mother, brother and the couple's two young sons, Gabriel and Max, who were conceived during Julian Assange’s time in the embassy.
As a Jesuit pope, Francis had long expressed solidarity with prisoners and frequently visited detainees on his foreign visits.
He even prioritised prison ministry when he was archbishop in Buenos Aires.
Prior to his imprisonment, Mr Assange had claimed asylum for seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in an attempt to avoid extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations.
Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigation in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed, but British judges kept Assange in prison pending the outcome of the long-running extradition case.
Mr Assange was released from Belmarsh in June 2024 after a deal in which he pleaded guilty to one charge under the US Espionage Act. He has spent no time in a US jail, instead returning to Australia.
