Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was among the mourners attending Pope Francis’s funeral in St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City, on Saturday.
Pope Francis had been a supporter of Assange and had even suggested giving him asylum in the Vatican.
“Now Julian is free, we have all come to Rome to express our family’s gratitude for the Pope’s support during Julian’s persecution. Our children and I had the honor of meeting Pope Francis in June 2023 to discuss how to free Julian from Belmarsh prison. Francis wrote to Julian in… pic.twitter.com/1B4iNp31Is
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 26, 2025
“Now Julian is free, we have all come to Rome to express our family’s gratitude for the Pope’s support during Julian’s persecution. Our children and I had the honor of meeting Pope Francis in June 2023 to discuss how to free Julian from Belmarsh prison. Francis wrote to Julian in prison and even proposed to grant him asylum at the Vatican,” Assange’s wife Stella said in a statement posted to X by the official Wikileaks account.
Assange was freed from Belmarsh prison last year after reaching a plea deal with the United States Justice Department. He had been imprisoned in the UK’s Belmarsh prison for five years after spending seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy with questionable protection of political asylum.
In March 2021, while he was still imprisoned, Pope Francis sent a personal letter to Assange in Belmarsh Prison, which the prison chaplain delivered on Palm Sunday.
Assange’s wife, Stella, expressed her gratitude to “the many Catholics and other Christians campaigning for his freedom” in a post on X about the letter.
On June 30, 2023, Pope Francis met with Stella Assange and their two sons, Gabriel and Max, in a private audience at the Vatican. Stella later told the Associated Press that the pope’s willingness to meet was evidence of his “ongoing show of support for our family’s plight” and that he was “concerned” about Julian’s suffering.
Watch: Video of the kids greeting the Pope before our private audience. pic.twitter.com/5M3y6jVfVc
— Stella Assange (@Stella_Assange) July 3, 2023
The funeral, held in the Baroque plaza outside St. Peter’s Basilica, attracted 150,000 to 170,000 attendees, including U.S. President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Prince William.
The publisher had long faced charges under the Espionage Act for publishing the Iraq and Afghan War Logs that were given to him by whistleblower Chelsea Manning. If convicted, he would have faced a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison for publishing the leaked materials.
Under the plea deal, Assange pled guilty to “Conspiracy To Obtain and Disclose National Defense Information” and was sentenced to 62 months in prison, with credit for his time in Belmarsh, allowing him to return to his home in Australia.
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