Julian Assange has been granted permission to wed his partner Stella Moris behind bars at Belmarsh Prison.  

The WikiLeaks founder has been held at the maximum security Category A jail in south-east London since 2019 after the US launched legal action to extradite him.

Assange, 50, met his future wife in 2011, while he was living in the Ecuadorean embassy in the capital.

The couple got engaged in 2017 and have two children, Max, two, and four-year-old Gabriel.

Ms Moris said: ‘I am relieved that reason prevailed and I hope there will be no further interference with our marriage.’

A judge at the Old Bailey ruled in January that Assange could not be extradited to the United States, saying it would be ‘oppressive’ on his mental health and he would be at risk of committing suicide.

He was indicted on 17 espionage charges and one of computer misuse.

If found guilty he could face up to 175 years in prison.

The US has lodged an appeal but the outcome is still pending.

A date has not yet been set for the couple’s wedding.

Ms Moris revealed how she met Assange when she was working as a legal researcher and asked to look into Swedish legal theory and practice.

In a statement supporting an application for bail in April last year, she wrote: ‘Over time Julian and I developed a strong intellectual and emotional bond. He became my best friend and I become his.’

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The friendship developed, and despite the ‘extraordinary circumstances’, a close relationship began in 2015, she said.

A Prison Service spokesperson confirmed the couple would be allowed to tie the knot.

‘Mr Assange’s application was received, considered and processed in the usual way by the prison governor, as for any other prisoner,’ they said.

Notorious violent inmate, Charles Bronson, married his bride, ex-Coronation Street actress Paula Williamson, at HMP Wakefield in 2017.

Britain’s first same-sex prison wedding took place in 2015 as Mikhail Ivan Gallatinov, 40, exchanged vows with Marc Goodwin, 31, at Full Sutton Prison in East Yorkshire – where both were serving life for violent attacks against other gay men.

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