Pope Francis has met Stella Assange, the wife of the imprisoned WikiLeaks founder, who said the pope’s gesture in receiving her was evidence of his “ongoing show of support for our family’s plight” and concern over the suffering of her husband, Julian. After the audience, Stella Assange said Francis had sent a letter to her husband in March 2021, during a particularly difficult period. “He has provided great solace and comfort and we are extremely appreciative for his reaching out to our family in this way,” she told the Associated Press. “He understands that Julian is suffering and is concerned.” Assange has spent four years in Belmarsh prison in London fighting extradition to the US, where he faces up to 175 years in jail on espionage charges for publishing classified military and diplomatic cables through WikiLeaks. Before that, Assange had claimed asylum for seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in an attempt to avoid extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations. Sweden dropped its investigations in November 2019 because so much time had …

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