Who is Julian Assange’s new wife, Stella Moris? The South African lawyer counts fashion designer Vivienne Westwood among her supporters and has a degree from Oxford
- The truly international lawyer, whose real name is Sara Gonzalez Devant, was born to a Swedish-Cuban father and Spanish mother, and has lived everywhere from Botswana to Lesotho
- Moris met the WikiLeaks founder in 2011 after being assigned to his legal team and the couple had two sons together, but she kept their father’s identity secret for years
“I am very happy and very sad,” she told those gathered outside the prison afterwards. “I love Julian with all my heart, and I wish he were here. He’s the most amazing person in the world, and he should be free.”
Assange has been held at Belmarsh since 2019 as the United States continues to seek his extradition to face trial on more than a dozen counts related to WikiLeaks’ release of confidential military records and diplomatic cables. If extradited, he faces a jail sentence of up to 175 years under the Espionage Act.
So just who is the mother of Assange’s children, and how did she meet him?
She’s a South African citizen of Cuban, Spanish and Swedish descent
Moris’ real name is Sara Gonzalez Devant. She was born in Johannesburg in 1983 and lived in several different countries, including Botswana, Lesotho, Sweden and Spain, before moving to the United Kingdom to pursue a career in human rights.
Her father, a Swede of Cuban heritage, was an architect, while her Spanish mother was a theatre director. They were part of the Medu Art Ensemble, a collective of cultural activists, and played a significant role in the struggle against South Africa’s apartheid policy of racial segregation and violent injustice.
According to The Guardian, Devant earned a bachelor’s degree in law and politics at SOAS University of London, a master’s degree in refugee law at Oxford, and a master’s degree in public international law from a University in Madrid.