LONDON: President Joe Biden must let Julian Assange go free if he wants the United States to become a beacon for a free press once again and put the legacy of Donald Trump behind it, the fiancée of the WikiLeaks founder told Reuters.
Washington has sought the extradition of Assange over his role in one of the biggest ever leaks of classified information, accusing him of putting lives in danger by releasing vast troves of confidential US military records and diplomatic cables.
He has now spent nine years in jail or self-incarceration in Britain, and both Assange’s fiancée Stella Moris and the British judge overseeing the extradition request have warned he may not survive a process to send him across the Atlantic.
“If Biden really wants to break with the Trump legacy, then he has to drop the case,” Moris told Reuters in an interview. “They can’t maintain this prosecution against Julian while saying that they defend a global press freedom.”
When Barack Obama served as president and Biden was his vice president, the US decided not to seek Assange’s extradition on the grounds that what WikiLeaks did was similar to journalistic activities protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution.
Weeks after taking office Trump administration officials stepped up public criticism of Assange and later filed a series of criminal charges accusing him of participating in a hacking conspiracy.
The US Justice Department said in February it planned to continue to seek the extradition for Assange to face hacking conspiracy charges.
Moris said the couple were planning to marry soon at the top-security Belmarsh prison where he is being held.
US prosecutors and Western security officials regard Assange as a reckless enemy of the state whose actions threatened the lives of agents named in the leaked material.
Supporters pit him as an anti-establishment hero who exposed US wrongdoing in Afghanistan and Iraq and say his prosecution is a politically-motivated assault on journalism that gives a free pass to oppressive regimes around the world.
WikiLeaks came to prominence when it published a US military video in 2010 showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff.
An effort to extradite him was launched in 2019 after he was detained in London after taking refuge in Ecuador’s embassy in the British capital for seven years to avoid being extradited to Sweden.
British judge Vanessa Baraitser said in January that although she accepted the US legal arguments in the case, she said Assange’s mental health issues meant he would be at risk of suicide if extradited, leading to her rejecting the request.
Moris, who has two young boys with the Australian-born Assange, said the 49-year-old was very low but still fighting. She likened his treatment as akin to the way some journalists are treated in China and Saudi Arabia.
“I think there’s no doubt that Julian wouldn’t survive an extradition,” she said.
She argued that any robust democracy had to accommodate internal dissent. “A superpower that has a free press is very different in nature from one that does not.”
She said she is hopeful that the case will be viewed differently under a Biden administration, but refused to say if his legal team had held talks with US officials.
Despite that hope, she said the couple were planning to marry soon inside Belmarsh, once the paperwork is done, rather than wait to hear his fate.
She said Assange had been given a huge lift recently when she was allowed to take their two sons to visit, allowing him to touch his children for the first time in over a year.
“He was happy to see us, but he’s struggling,” she said. “He’s very low but he’s fighting. He has the hope that this will end soon.”
Assange’s fiancée urges Biden to free WikiLeaks founder to show US has changed
https://arab.news/jdw3m
Assange’s fiancée urges Biden to free WikiLeaks founder to show US has changed
- Julien Assange's fiancee urges US president Joe Biden to free WikiLeaks founder to reflect the US's commitment to free press.
- he US Justice Department said it plans to continue seeking the extradition for Assange to face hacking conspiracy charges.
A look back at how Arab News marked its 50th anniversary
- In a year crowded with news, the paper still managed to innovate and leverage AI to become available in 50 languages
- Golden Jubilee Gala, held at the Diplomatic Quarter in Riyadh, now available to watch on YouTube
RIYADH: In 2025, the global news agenda was crowded with headlines concerning wars, elections and rapid technological change.
Inside the newsroom of Arab News, the year carried additional weight: Saudi Arabia’s first English-language daily marked its 50th anniversary.
And with an industry going through turmoil worldwide, the challenge inside the newsroom was how to turn a midlife crisis into a midlife opportunity.
For the newspaper’s team members, the milestone was less about nostalgia than about ensuring the publication could thrive in a rapidly changing and evolving media landscape.
“We did not want just to celebrate our past,” said Faisal J. Abbas, editor-in-chief of Arab News. “But more importantly, we were constantly thinking of how we can keep Arab News relevant for the next five decades.”
The solution, he added, came down to two words: “Artificial intelligence.”
For the Arab News newsroom, AI was not a replacement for journalism but as a tool to extend it.
“It was like having three eyes at once: one on the past, one on the present, and one on the future,” said Noor Nugali, the newspaper’s deputy editor-in-chief.
One of the first initiatives was the 50th anniversary commemorative edition, designed as a compact historical record of the region told through Arab News’ own reporting.
“It was meant to be like a mini history book, telling the history of the region using Arab News’ archive with a story from each year,” said Siraj Wahab, acting executive editor of the newspaper.
The issue, he added, traced events ranging from the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war in 1975 to the swearing-in of Donald Trump, while also paying homage to former editors-in-chief who shaped the newspaper’s direction over five decades.
The anniversary edition, however, was only one part of a broader strategy to signal Arab News’ focus on the future.
To that end, the paper partnered with Google to launch the region’s first AI-produced podcast using NotebookLM, an experimental tool that synthesizes reporting and archival material into audio storytelling.
The project marked a regional first in newsroom-led AI audio production.
The podcast was unveiled during a special 50th anniversary ceremony in mid-November, held on the sidelines of the Arab Media Forum, hosted by the Dubai Future Foundation. The event in the UAE’s commercial hub drew regional media leaders and officials.
Remarks at the event highlighted the project as an example of innovation in legacy media, positioning Arab News as a case study in digital reinvention rather than preservation alone.
“This is a great initiative, and I’m happy that it came from Arab News as a leading media platform, and I hope to see more such initiatives in the Arab world especially,” said Mona Al-Marri, director-general of the Government of Dubai Media Office, on the sidelines of the event.
“AI is the future, and no one should deny this. It will take over so many sectors. We have to be ready for it and be part of it and be ahead of anyone else in this interesting field.”
Behind the scenes, another long-form project was taking shape: a documentary chronicling Arab News’ origins and its transformation into a global, digital-first newsroom.
“While all this was happening, we were also working in-house on a documentary telling the origin story of Arab News and how it transformed under the current editor into a more global, more digital operation,” said Nugali.
The result was “Rewriting Arab News,” a documentary examining the paper’s digital transformation and its navigation of Saudi Arabia’s reforms between 2016 and 2018. The film charted editorial shifts, newsroom restructuring and the challenges of reporting during a period of rapid national change.
The documentary was screened at the Frontline Club in London, the European Union Embassy, Westminster University, and the World Media Congress in Bahrain. It later became available on the streaming platform Shahid and onboard Saudi Arabian Airlines.
It was also nominated for an Association for International Broadcasting award.
In early July, a special screening of the documentary took place at the EU Embassy in Riyadh. During the event, EU Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Christophe Farnaud described the film as an “embodiment” of the “incredible changes” that the Kingdom is undergoing.
“I particularly appreciate … the historical dimension, when (Arab News) was created in 1975 — that was also a project corresponding to the new role of the Kingdom,” Farnaud said. “Now the Kingdom has entered a new phase, a spectacular phase of transformation.”
Part of the documentary is narrated by Prince Turki Al-Faisal, the former Saudi ambassador to the US, who in the film delves into the paper’s origins.
The grand slam of the anniversary year was the Golden Jubilee of Arab News gala, held in late September in Riyadh’s Diplomatic Quarter.
Hosted by the Dean of Diplomatic Corps in Saudi Arabia and Ambassador of Djibouti to Riyadh Dya-Eddine Said Bamakhrama, the evening featured a keynote address by Prince Turki, who spoke about Arab News’ founding under his father, the late King Faisal, and its original mission to present the Kingdom to the English-speaking world.
Arab News was established in Jeddah in 1975 by brothers Hisham and Mohammed Ali Hafiz under the slogan to give Arabs a voice in English while documenting the major transformations taking place across the Middle East.
The two founders were honored with a special trophy presented by Prince Turki, Assistant Media Minister Abdullah Maghlouth, Editor-in-Chief Abbas, and family member and renowned columnist Talat Hafiz on behalf of the founders.
During the gala, Abbas announced Arab News’ most ambitious expansion yet: the launch of the publication in 50 languages, unveiled later at the World Media Congress in Madrid in cooperation with Camb.AI.
The Madrid launch in October underscored Arab News’ aim to reposition itself not simply as a regional paper, but as a global platform for Saudi and Middle Eastern perspectives.
The event was attended by Princess Haifa bint Abdulaziz Al-Mogrin, the Saudi ambassador to Spain; Arab and Spanish diplomats; and senior editors and executives.
As the anniversary year concluded, Arab News released the full video of the Golden Jubilee Gala to the public for the first time, making the event accessible beyond the room in which it was held.
For a newspaper founded in an era of typewriters and wire copy, the message of its 50th year was clear: longevity alone is not enough. Relevance, the newsroom concluded, now depends on how well journalism adapts without losing sight of its past.
