Julian Assange latest: WikiLeaks founder will ‘be a free man’, wife Stella says after plea deal

Julian Assange’s wife Stella said the couple’s children are “not yet” aware that their father has been released from prison.

Asked if she had told their children, Ms Assange told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: “Not yet. All I told them was that there was a big surprise and on the morning that we left, I told them we were heading to the airport and we got on the plane and I told them that we were going to visit our family, their cousin, their grandfather and so on.

“They still don’t know – we’ve been very careful because obviously no one can stop a five and a seven-year-old from shouting it from the rooftops at any given moment.

“And because of the sensitivity around the judge having to sign off the deal, we’ve been very careful – just gradually, incrementally telling them information. They’re very excited to be in Australia though.”

Ms Assange said she would tell her children about their father’s release before they see him.

She added: “They’ve never seen him outside of Belmarsh. All their interactions with Julian have been in a single visitors room inside Belmarsh Prison. It’s always been for a little more than an hour at a time. It’s been very restrictive.

“He can’t walk around, he can’t go to the tuck shop – he wasn’t able to go to the tuck shop and buy a chocolate or anything. You see, I have to change my tenses now – it’s been so long that I’m not used to talking about Julian free in the present.”