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Fashion designer Vivienne Westwood is pictured with a group of activists who are working to prevent the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States in London, February 2020, as he Espionage charges against the U.S. government. File photo of Hugo Philpott/UPI | license photo
December 31 (United Press International) — Julian Assangefounder of WikiLeaksWill leave Belmarsh Prison on leave to attend funeral vivienne westwood.
Westwood, the designer known for promoting punk and new wave fashion, was a supporter and friend of Assange, who protested his imprisonment before his death in London on Thursday.
Assange has been in a London jail since April 2019 as he fights extradition to the United States on espionage charges for publishing leaked classified documents. Chelsea Manning.
His wife Stella Assange has revealed his plea for release, According to the BBC with independent.
Westwood’s death prompted Julian Assange to make his first public remarks since his imprisonment, but his wife released them later.
“Vivian was a grande dame and a pillar of the anti-establishment. Bold, creative, thoughtful and a great friend. The best of Britain. She will be greatly missed by me and many others,” Assange said.
In her own comments, Stella Assange said she and her husband “love her company” and called the fashion designer a “fierce activist and true altruist”.
A Justice Ministry spokesman told the BBC that Assange’s request was unlikely to be granted because such leave only applies to close relatives, though he added that it was up to prison directors to decide the matter.
Westwood became a close friend of Assange after the infamous WikiLeaks documents became public, including a video showing US soldiers shooting and killing 18 civilians from a helicopter in Iraq.
She visited Assange regularly during her extended stay at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and in July 2020 she hung herself in a birdcage outside the Old Bailey to protest his extradition.
Details about Westwood’s funeral have not been made public.
