All Stella Moris wants is to free the man she loves – 9Honey

All Stella Moris wants is for the man she loves to be allowed to come home. Instead the couple are in the fight of their life and trying to avoid his extradition to the United States where he will face charges for treason for his work, even though he is not a US citizen.

Her partner, Australian Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, is facing 175 years in prison for what Moris calls "publishing the most important journalistic scoops in the past fifty years".

"We miss each other terribly," she tells 9Honey. "We talk several times a day and he is able to speak to the boys regularly. It keeps him afloat. But it's been a very long time now and it's very hard.

"We are all suffering and once we are reunited, I hope to go back to a quiet life," she says.

Moris, 37, met Assange, 48, while he was in asylum at Embassy of Ecuador in London from which he was recently removed. He was placed in notorious HM Prison in Belmarsh and is reportedly in ill health. He is now fighting extradition to the United States where he is facing treason charges.

RELATED: Julian Assange to hear UK judge's verdict on US extradition in January

They have two children - Gabriel, two, and Max, one.

"If Julian is extradited our children will be fatherless," Moris says. "I will lose him forever, but so will the rest of the world.

"The children don't yet understand what is happening to their father and I want to shield them as much as possible from this nightmare," she continues. "They know daddy loves them and misses them and wants to come home."

Moris says she tells them their "daddy is a hero".

"I don't tell them he's in a prison, just that he can't come home with us when we go to visit him in the 'big house'."

Before going public with their relationship on Nine's 60 Minutes in June, Moris feared for their safety but felt she had to speak out following the most recent attempts to extradite him to the US.

She has been in court each and every day of the hearing and her contact with Assange is limited to one phone call each day.

"He is brought to court each day in a security van, which is effectively a vertical coffin. It's a claustrophobic hour and a half every morning and afternoon," she says. "He's handcuffed, strip searched and x-rayed. The court proceedings are chaotic."

RELATED: Everything we know about Julian Assange's fiance Stella Moris

She feels frustrated at how Assange is currently being treated, saying he hadn't seen his lawyers for six months when these hearings started.

"The first time he saw them was when the hearings started two and a half weeks ago," she says. "He's a spectator not a participant. The judge has ruled he will not sit with his lawyers, so he can barely speak to them.

"He's in a glass box in the court room. His defence is grossly disadvantaged for these and other reasons."

She says it's hard going to court each day knowing "he will be taken away at the end of the day rather than come home".

"I know that to bring him home I need to raise awareness, so I try to stay focused on that," she says.

Moris wants people to know the Assange she does, a "good, thoughtful man" and "the most principled man I know".

"He feels it is a duty to strengthen democratic accountability by exposing wrongdoing, uncovering war crimes and holding governments and corporations to account," she says.

Moris say she feels "heartened by the growing support" for Assange's plight.

"The cross-party parliamentary group in Australia has done incredible work," she says. "It lifts Julian's spirits to know that there is support from all sides of politics, in the leadership and the grass roots."

She isn't so complimentary of the Australian Government, saying they must "step in to save it's citizen from this situation".

"The Australian government must also step in to show that it really does believe in the right to freedom of expression and the freedom of journalists and publishers to reveal inconvenient truths without fear of a political persecution," she says.

"Scott Morrison can call up his counterpart and tell him the Australian government is opposed to this extradition going ahead," she says.

"The public can also press the government that if Julian wins this case, the Australian government will act to ensure we are safe and refuse any future attempts by the US to extradite Julian if we live there," she says.

On 2 May hearings began into the US government's request to extradite him with a decision expected on 4 January 2021.

Moris says she won't stop fighting for Assange's freedom.

"Whatever happens, we need to continue to fight for Julian's freedom for as long as it takes," she says. "If we lose, we will appeal against the decision and continue the fight in the courts."

Email Jo Abi at jabi@nine.com.au.

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All Stella Moris wants is to free the man she loves - 9Honey