“The CIA wanted to murder Julian Assange”

It is a unique love affair that transcends all borders: Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, has been imprisoned in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012, and Stella is in his team of lawyers. They secretly became a couple in 2015 and had two sons. The controversial whistleblower has now been in Belmarsh, a British maximum security prison, for four and a half years. According to independent doctors, his condition is critical. The British want to extradite him to the USA. There he faces up to 175 years in prison, probably also: torture and isolation. The accusation: espionage because of the publication of secret state documents, for example about the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They exposed US war crimes such as massacres of civilians.

His wife is now fighting for his release around the world, including with the “Don’t Extradite Julian Assange” campaign. An important ally for years: the Bitcoin community. Stella Assange regularly appears at conferences such as BTC Amsterdam. BTC-ECHO editors Giacomo Maihofer and Daniel Hoppmann spoke with Stella Assange in November at the Web Summit, Europe’s largest tech conference in Lisbon. The topics: Bitcoin’s role in the fight for Julian’s freedom, fears of a new surveillance state, alleged CIA assassination plans – and how Stella explains to her children that their father has been in prison for years.