As a computer activist or journalist, Julian Assange has devoted much of his adult life to spreading state and business secrets, especially through his digital portal WikiLeaks, which has cost him health and the enmity of powers such as the United States. .
Assange, who has been incarcerated in the UK for more than a decade without having been convicted of a crime, is to go to prison after British justice refused parole on Wednesday due to flight risk.
The journalist was confident he could be released on parole after a British judge rejected his surrender to the US on Monday, accusing him of espionage over his fragile mental health.
Plagued by depression and suicidal ideation, the 49-year-old Australian will not be able to have his partner, Stella Moris, and their two young children, born while seeking refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid his extradition to Sweden.
Born in Townsville, Australia on July 3, 1971, his figure, with a pale complexion and characteristically white hair, remains a mystery even to his associates, who describe him as charismatic and intelligent but unpredictable, now more with his diminished abilities.
The computer scientist, who in his heyday would have spent hours at work without washing, eating or sleeping, had a nomadic childhood in Australia, where his mother, artist Christine Ann, constantly switched places of residence and escaped the father of her brother. minor, of whom he claimed custody.
As a youth, he was prosecuted in that country for computer crime when he and his group International Subversives gained access to protected systems of official organizations, but he was fined when the judge ruled that his activities were responsive to curiosity and not targets. criminal.
While still a teenager, he married a girl with whom he had a son in 1989, Daniel Assange, now a software designer, whose custody they eventually shared after they broke up.
During the lawsuits in London it was indicated that he could have more children whose identities are unknown.
In the mid-1990s, Assange worked as a free software programmer, on coders for Linux, and contributed to the book “Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier”, by Suelette Dreyfuss (1997), where he explained his philosophy so as not to damage the computer systems accessed.
After studying mathematics and physics at the University of Melbourne (although he did not graduate), he co-founded WikiLeaks in 2006 with a mission to disclose government information that he believed should be available to citizens.
It came to light when WikiLeaks released a controversial video in April 2010 showing US soldiers shooting civilians in Iraq in 2007, and later those 250,000 diplomatic messages embarrassing world leaders.
In recent years, he has not hesitated to confront the powers that must achieve his goal of spreading their dark secrets, while at the same time denouncing a persecution by the US and its allies in Sweden to silence him. to impose.
After Ecuador in 2019 revoked the asylum it granted him in 2012 to avoid surrender to the Swedish state, Assange faced his worst nightmare: he was arrested at the request of the United States, which charged him with 18 crimes of espionage and computer hacking. for the revelations of his portal.
The hope of his team and his thousands of supporters is that Joe Biden’s new US administration will drop charges against him, which his lawyers say are political in nature and, if successful, would undermine journalism around the world.