Five years in a 2x3m cell in Belmarsh prison, seven years hiding in Ecuador Embassy bolthole - and now on the cusp of freedom: Inside Julian Assange's fight against US spy charges - as WikiLeaks founder leaves UK

After spending the last 12 years being either holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy or held in a 2x3m cell in Belmarsh Prison, Julian Assange yesterday strutted along the tarmac at Stansted Airport as the sun beamed down to board a private jet a 'free man'.  

The WikiLeaks founder is now set to retreat to the peaceful calms of the Australian bush in his native country for a 'quiet life' once his plea deal with US authorities over spy charges is signed off by a judge.  

It is in juxtaposition from the more than decade-long circus that has followed the 52-year-old that has been fraught with fears of the death penalty, allegations of rape being dropped, and gaining a mass of supporters which includes ex-Baywatch star Pamela Anderson. 

The computer programmer first gained notoriety in his teens as a skilled hacker under the name Mendax.

By 1995 he was in court in Australia facing more than 30 hacking offences. Facing more than 10 years in prison he struck a plea deal to escape being sent behind bars having promised not to do it again. 

Fifteen years later he would play a part in the largest security data breach of its kind in US military history. 

In 2010, WikiLeaks, a website he co-founded four years earlier, published a trove of classified US military documents about the Afghanistan conflict from 2004 to 2009.

The more than 700,000 confidential papers, provided by then US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, included 5,000 documents relating to the war in Afghanistan and approximately 390,000 army field reports relating to the Iraq war.

The most stark of which was a 2007 video of a US Apache helicopter firing at suspected insurgents in Iraq, killing a dozen people including two Reuters journalists.

He faced 18 counts from a 2019 indictment for his role in the WikiLeaks data breach. It carried a maximum of up to 175 years in prison, though he was unlikely to be sentenced to that time in full. 

Assange was indicted during former President Donald Trump's administration over the mass release of secret US documents.

Officials in the US had alleged that Assange goaded Manning into obtaining thousands of pages of unfiltered US diplomatic cables.

US prosecutors claimed that the cables were not only embarrassing but more importantly potentially endangered confidential sources. 

Many contained top secret information regarding Iraq war-related activity reports and information related to detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.

Manning was jailed for 35 years in 2013 but her sentence was commuted in 2017 by Barack Obama in one of his last acts as US president. 

Two years later she was back behind bars for refusing to testify against Assange before a grand jury. Manning was released in March 2020. 

But it would be an allegation of sex crimes months after the massive data dump that Assange had his first run-in with the authorities. 

Swedish prosecutors obtained a European arrest warrant in 2010 to bring in him for questioning after two women accused him of offences, one of rape and one of molestation, following a speaking trip to the country in August.

His lawyers described it as a 'smear campaign' while Assange labelled the allegations as 'without basis'. 

In December of that year he was arrested in London while being accompanied by both his British lawyers, Mark Stephens and Jennifer Robinson, having 'negotiated a meeting with police'. 

He was granted bail soon after when his supporters put up £240,000 in cash and sureties and he spent years fighting against extradition to Sweden. 

His supporters alleged the allegations were drummed up to enable his detention so he could be extradited to America over the leaks.

So in 2012 when his final appeals were exhausted, instead of fighting to clear his name, he breached his UK bail and fled into London's Ecuadorian embassy to seek asylum. 

In August that year he stood on the embassy's balcony and gave a rambling speech, frequently disrupted by police helicopters, in which he accused the US of a 'witch-hunt' that threatened freedom of expression. 

Assange claimed he had heard police inside the mansion block building and said a core of protesters who have maintained a vigil outside the embassy had protected him. 

He told them: 'On Wednesday night, after a threat was sent to this embassy, and the police descended on the building, you came out in the middle of the night to watch over it, and you brought the world's eyes with you.

'Inside the embassy, after dark, I could hear teams of police swarming up into the building through the internal fire escape. But I knew there would be witnesses. And that is because of you. 

'If the UK did not throw away the Vienna Conventions the other night, that is because the world was watching. And the world was watching because you were watching.'

Scotland Yard denied officers had entered or attempted to enter the building.

Believing he would be extradicted to the US for questioning over the activities of WikiLeaks if he left the building, he stayed holed up in the building for seven years, until Sweden dropped the rape charge against him.

Swedish prosecutors said in 2019: 'The reason for this decision is that the evidence has weakened considerably due to the long period of time that has elapsed since the events in question.'

His stay at the embassy is thought to have cost taxpayers £13.2million and brought a raft of high profile visitors that included Vivienne Westwood, Lady Gaga, American actors John Cusack and Maggie Gyllenhaal, Yoko Ono and her son Sean, and even former Manchester United star Eric Cantona. 

The former Baywatch star and Playboy model Pamela Anderson was another frequent visitor, bringing vegan treats for 'one of my favourite people'. 

While holed up inside he secretly fathered two sons - Gabriel and Max - with his lawyer Stella Moris.  

Assange watched both children being born in London hospitals via live video link and met Gabriel when he was smuggled into the embassy.   

'I was in the embassy every day and Julian became a friend,' Moris told the Mail on Sunday in 2020. 

'Over the years he went from being a person I enjoyed seeing to the man I wanted to see most in the world.' 

She described him as 'a generous and tender loving partner' adding: 'He asked me to marry him in 2017 [when they were engaged] and I chose a diamond ring, which I showed him online, that we both loved.

'We even hoped we'd find a way of marrying in the embassy.'

By 2019 Assange's relationship with the Ecuador Embassy had soured with accusations the country's government was carrying out 'extensive spying' on him.  

One official even accused him of smearing faeces on the walls - a claim which was stringently denied by his supporters.

Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno said the country had 'reached its limit on the behaviour of Mr Assange'.

Mr Moreno said: 'The most recent incident occurred in January 2019, when WikiLeaks leaked Vatican documents.

'This and other publications have confirmed the world's suspicion that Mr Assange is still linked to WikiLeaks and therefore involved in interfering in internal affairs of other states.'

He also accused Assange of blocking security cameras at the embassy, accessing security files and confronting guards.

Assange's team alleged that throughout his time at the embassy, he was subjected to inhumane conditions.

Dr Sondra Crosby, an associate professor of medicine and public health at Boston University and an expert on the physical and psychological impact of torture, was tasked with assessing Assange in 2018.

According to the Intercept, she wrote in an affidavit she gave to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights: 'Mr. Assange's situation [inside the embassy] differs from a typical prisoner in a conventional prison.

'In fact, his position is worse than a conventional prison in many respects. His confinement is indefinite and uncertain, which increases chronic stress and its myriad of chronic physical and serious psychological risks, including suicide.'

Despite the allegations of horrific treatment at the hands of the Ecuadorian embassy, he was dragged out by the Met Police in 2019 during Operation Pelican when his asylum was revoked, and jailed for skipping bail.

But at the same time, US authorities were indicting him over the WikiLeaks data breaches.

Assange was taken to HMP Belmarsh maximum security prison where he would spend the next five years being kept in a 2x3m cell in isolation for 23 hours a day. 

In February 2020 he began facing a series of a extradition hearings while held at Belmarsh, which is home to former Metropolitan Police officer and serial rapist David Carrick, who is serving 32 years for 24 counts of rape over two decades.

Several years of consequent legal to-and-fro resulted in Assange appealing multiple decisions to extradite him. 

He would later tie the knot with human rights lawyer Moris in March 2022 in a ceremony inside the prison walls in which she wore a full-length wedding dress with one of designer Vivienne Westwood's signature corsets. 

Her floor-length tulle veil was embroidered with with messages from their friends and family which included words such as 'valiant, wild, relentless and free enduring love''

Assange wore a specially made tartan kilt by the designer in honour of his Scottish roots.

The couple married inside the high-security southeast London prison in a small ceremony attended by two guests and two prison guards - with a guard acting as the wedding snapper.

Speaking in an op-ed for the Guardian ahead of the ceremony Moris said of the dress: 'I am honoured to be wearing their beautiful creation. It is a symbol of our love and defiance in the face of this cruel situation.'

The prison refused permission for journalists or a photographer to be present as witnesses on security grounds.

After a civil ceremony and a blessing by a Catholic chaplain in the presence of their two young sons the new Mr and Mrs Julian Assange were escorted back into the prison's general visiting hall.

Moris made claims in February this year that his health was declining as he awaited a decision on his extradition. 

'He's not doing well, he wasn't even attending these hearings and this is the decisive hearing,' Stella told Tucker Carlson during an appearance on his X show.

'If he hadn't been kept in Belmarsh prison during the past five years he wouldn't be in this state of deterioration and decline. Every day he spends in prison is a day that his health deteriorates.' 

She addressed a Yahoo News report that claimed the CIA planned to assassinate Assange after Wikileaks published sensitive agency hacking tools online, with Carlson asking how she felt that 'Mike Pompeo tried to murder her husband.'

'Julian is under enormous pressure... he knows the US is a country that has plotted his assassination's. The stakes could not be higher,' Stella said.

'If the UK decides in favor of the US, the it will put Julian on a plane to the US, that is how imminent it is. Really, it's a very high-risk moment for Julian.'

Pompeo allegedly led the crusade against Assange in 2017 when WikiLeaks continued publishing classified government documents.

'He's a dangerous individual,' Stella said of Pompeo. 'The CIA is a rogue organization that everyone on every level of US politics is terrified of, they are trained to assassinate, to fabricate information and place it in the media and conduct propaganda warfare and to overthrow governments and so on.'

Carlson also accused the British government of degrading 'their own system and history on behalf of the US government'.

'It's the default state of affairs - the UK views itself as a lapdog,' she replied.

But yesterday Assange appeared to be full of vigour as WikiLeaks celebrated its former editor's release from behind bars declaring on X: 'Julian Assange is free!' 

In a pre-recorded video filmed outside Belmarsh prison, Assange's wife Stella and WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said: 'If you're seeing this, it means he is out.' 

WikiLeaks published footage of Assange being driven from Belmarsh jail in London, where he has been detained for five years, to Stansted Airport. He then boarded a private jet that landed in Bangkok, Thailand to refuel.

The group said: 'After more than five years in a 2x3 metre cell, isolated 23 hours a day, he will soon reunite with his wife Stella Assange, and their children, who have only known their father from behind bars.' 

Last night she posted on X: 'Julian is free!!!! Words cannot express our immense gratitude to YOU - yes YOU, who have all mobilised for years and years to make this come true. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.'