Julian Assange's Wife 'Worried' After Jailed Journalist Catches COVID-19

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is being held at Belmarsh prison in south London — a 'Category A' high-security prison where terrorists are jailed — while he makes a second appeal against his extradition to the US on espionage charges.

The wife of Julian Assange has voiced her fears for the jailed WikiLeaks founder after he tested positive for COVID-19.

"He tested positive for COVID on Saturday, the same day thousands of people came out onto the streets to support him," Stella Morris said, referring to a protest outside the Houses of Parliament calling for his release.

She said prison authorities had only given her husband some paracetamol for his symptoms.

"I am obviously worried about him and the next few days will be crucial for his general health. He is now locked in his cell for 24 hours a day," Morris stressed.

Assange is currently being held in HMP Belmarsh in south London, a 'Category A' high-security prison where terrorists are jailed, pending his second appeal against his extradition to the US to stand trial on espionage charges.

He faces up to 175 years in prison across the Atlantic for publishing evidence of US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, leaked by Pentagon whistle-blower Chelsea Manning.

Assange was arrested in April 2019 after he was evicted from the Ecuadorean embassy on the orders of the South American country's recently-elected president Lenin Moreno — the successor to left-winger Rafael Correa who granted the journalist asylum there in 2012.