ROME, April 26, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Wikileaks founder Julian Assange joined the crowds in Rome for Pope Francis's funeral on Saturday, the whistle-blowing website said on X, quoting his wife Stella Assange.

"Now Julian is free, we have all come to Rome to express our family's gratitude for the pope's support during Julian's persecution," Assange said.

Julian Assange was released in 2024 under a plea bargain after years of incarceration for publishing hundreds of thousands of confidential US government documents.

He spent most of the previous 14 years either holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy in London to avoid arrest, or locked up at Belmarsh Prison in the British capital.

"Our children and I had the honor of meeting Pope Francis in June 2023 to discuss how to free Julian from Belmarsh prison," Stella Assange said.

"Francis wrote to Julian in prison and even proposed to grant him asylum at the Vatican," she said.

The Assange family mingled with the crowds near the top of the Via della Conciliazione, the wide avenue that leads up to St Peter's Square, which was packed for the funeral.

Assange's case remains deeply contentious.

The trove published on the Wikileaks website included searingly frank US State Department descriptions of foreign leaders, accounts of extrajudicial killings and intelligence gathering against allies.

Supporters hail Assange as a champion of free speech and say he was persecuted by authorities and unfairly imprisoned.

Detractors see him as a reckless blogger whose uncensored publication of ultra-sensitive documents put lives at risk and jeopardised US security.