Last week, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested.
After being holed up in London’s Ecuadorian embassy for almost seven years, the Australian journalist was dragged out of the embassy in a dramatic, highly televised arrest.
Just hours later, the WikiLeaks founder faced a London court, where he was found guilty.
Sarah Hewson is one journalist who has stepped into London’s Ecuadorian embassy to interview the WikiLeaks founder.
Speaking to Mamamia’s news podcast The Quicky, the Sky News presenter said she was shocked when she saw Assange arrested last Thursday.
Listen to Mamamia’s daily news podcast, The Quicky, on Julian Assange’s bizarre life in the Ecuadorian embassy. Post continues after audio.
“When I saw him on Thursday, I was shocked by his appearance – that long hair, that long white beard, being dragged out of the embassy,” Hewson said.
Speaking to The Quicky about her 2014 interview with Assange, Hewson recounted the one moment Assange mentioned his family.
“There was only one occasion during the interview where I saw a glimpse of emotion from him and that was when I asked him about the impact it had had on his family and he did wobble,” she said.
“He said it had been very, very hard on his family and that was his only regret about the whole situation.”
Now, as Assange awaits sentencing in custody, many people have questioned how many children the 47-year-old has in the outside world.
Here’s what we know so far about Julian Assange’s children.
Who is Daniel Assange?
Although little is known about Julian Assange’s children, Julian’s son Daniel Assange has spoken out about his father in the past.
During his teenage years, Julian Assange married a woman named Teresa. While a number of publications claim that Teresa, then 17 years old, was Daniel’s mother, the rumour has never been officially confirmed.
A year after Daniel was born, his mother fled with him. What followed was an almost decade long bitter custody battle between Assange and the mother of his child.
Finally, in 1999, after dozens of legal hearings and appeals, Assange worked out a custody agreement with Daniel's mother.
Today, little is known about Daniel Assange. Now in his late 20s, it's believed Assange's son lives in Melbourne, where he reportedly works as a software designer.
Although Daniel has kept a predominately low profile, he did give an interview to Crikey back in 2010.
In the interview, Daniel admitted that his father asked him to be a part of WikiLeaks when he was just 16 years old.
"I never thought he was going to succeed," Daniel told the publication.
"It was a ridiculous concept, that he was going to actually leak government documents to the entire world."
In the years following the launch of WikiLeaks, however, Assange largely distanced himself from Daniel.
"As for him not contacting me [following the launch of WikiLeaks], it's probably at least in part an attempt to protect me," he told Crikey.
"If it was known that I was the son and was directly involved in some way, there was a likelihood of a direct retaliation, and my father was quite concerned about such things."
Does Julian Assange have any other children?
The exact number of Julian Assange's children and their identities are not known. Online, reports of how many children Assange may have are conflicted.
In his book Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World's Most Dangerous Website, former WikiLeaks spokesperson Daniel Domscheit-Berg claimed that Assange admitted to having multiple children.
"Often I sat in large groups and listened to Julian boast about how many children he had fathered in various parts of the world," Domschiet-Berg claimed.
"He seemed to enjoy the idea of lots and lots of Julians, one on every continent. Whether he took care of any of these alleged children, or whether they existed at all, was another question."
According to police documents, another witness claimed that Assange had "at least" four children. It is unknown where the children are located or who their mothers are.
In 2016, Assange got a cat. At the time, he told reporters that the cat, nicknamed Embassy Cat, was a gift from his children.
According to a source that spoke to the New Yorker, however, the claim that the cat was a gift from his children was a lie.
"Julian stared at the cat for about half an hour, trying to figure out how it could be useful, and then came up with this: Yeah, let’s say it’s from my children. For a time, he said it didn’t have a name because there was a competition in Ecuador, with schoolchildren, on what to name him. Everything is PR - everything," the source said.
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Mr. Assange is one of the great hero's of our time. He should be treated with the greatest respect.