Julian Assange to marry in UK prison but pictures are banned

Julian Assange is getting a new “ball and chain” when he weds behind bars Wednesday — but won’t be able to leak any photographs.

The WikiLeaks founder was set to marry his former lawyer Stella Moris inside London’s Belmarsh prison — under such strict security they’re even banned from posing for their own wedding pics.

“Today I will go through the gates at the most oppressive high-security prison in the country and be married to a political prisoner,” Moris wrote in The Guardian ahead of her planned nuptials to “the love of my life.”

“This is not a prison wedding, it is a declaration of love and resilience in spite of the prison walls,” she insisted.

The bride-to-be complained that “every part of this private event is being intensely policed” by authorities for the UK prison, where Assange, 50, has been held since 2019 while US authorities seek his extradition on espionage charges that could see him spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Their “dispute” with the British government and prison officials included the decision to ban their proposed witnesses because they were journalists.

They were also banned from taking in a photographer because “the prison states that our wedding picture is a security risk because it could end up in social media or the press,” Moris wrote.

“How absurd. What kind of security threat could a wedding picture pose?” she asked, saying her husband was facing “a different set of rules.”

Still, the “torment only makes our love grow stronger,” she declared.

The bride-to-be did, however, pose for photographs in her silvery Vivienne Westwood wedding gown as she arrived at the prison gates with Gabriel and Max, the sons she secretly had with Assange during his seven years hiding from arrest in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

Westwood — a longtime Assange advocate — also made kilts for the groom-to-be and his male guests in a nod to his Scottish heritage.

Instead, the registrar-led ceremony, only allowed during prison visiting hours, will be attended by four guests, two official witnesses — and two prison wardens.

Moris and her wedding party will then have to leave immediately after the ceremony. She plans to then cut a wedding cake outside the prison, which houses some of Britain’s most notorious inmates.

The couple first met in 2011, when Moris joined Assange’s legal team while he remained holed up in the embassy. Their relationship started in 2015, she said after revealing the two children she’d had with him.

Assange’s big day follows a recent blow in his legal battle when he was denied permission to launch an appeal at Britain’s Supreme Court against a decision to extradite him. However, he could still challenge the government’s ratification of the extradition. 

Assange has denied any wrongdoing, claiming he was acting as a journalist when WikiLeaks’ released vast troves of confidential US military records and diplomatic cables more than a decade ago.

With Post wires