East Timor's former president and prime minister Xanana Gusmao has separated from his Australian wife Kirsty Sword Gusmao, ending a fairytale 15-year marriage that began when the then resistance fighter fell in-love with a 20-year younger undercover agent who came to his jail cell in the Indonesian capital Jakarta.
"We wish to inform our friends, colleagues and many wonderful supporters of our decision to separate as a couple," Mr Gusmao, 68, said from Melbourne, where Ms Sword is now living with the couple's three sons.
"Like all couples who decide to do this, it did not come easy," he said.
"We have both devoted a lot of our lives to firstly seeking and securing independence for Timor-Leste (East Timor) and then our whole married life to working through the various stages and challenges associated with building a nation from ground up."
The announcement comes after Mr Gusmao last month stepped down as East Timor's prime minister two years before his term expired, opening the way for a unity government that seeks to hand power to a new generation of leaders more than a decade after the half-island nation gained independence from Indonesia.
Working undercover for East Timor's resistance movement under the code-name "Ruby Blade," Ms Sword met Xanana in a Jakarta jail in 1994.
"I shook hands with Xanana and I had to pretend that I wasn't particularly interested in him," Ms Sword said in 2002.
Fluent in the Indonesian language after growing up in Bendigo and Melbourne and completing a degree at Melbourne University, Ms Sword was working as teacher and human rights campaigner in Jakarta when she began passing messages from Xanana under the noses of the Indonesian police and army.
Mr Gusmao, a wily leader of East Timor's struggle for freedom, served seven years of a 20-year prison sentence before being released in 1999 after East Timorese voted to break-away from Indonesia.
Few people were surprised when Ms Sword soon became Xanana's secretary and fell in love with the charismatic former guerrilla leader.
They married in 2000 and heir first son Alexandre was born soon after.
Ms Sword adopted East Timor as her home and became widely admired among East Timorese as she committed herself to the job of being the First Lady of the world's newest nation as it struggled to recover from ruins and bloodshed following a violent backlash by pro-Indonesian militia to the independence vote.
She founded the ALOLA Foundation in 2001 to address the needs of East Timorese women and their families and worked as an ambassador for education in the country that remains one of the world's poorest.
In 2008 Ms Sword protected her children from rebel gunmen stalking her family's home in the hills above the capital Dili during an assassination attempt on her husband, after East Timor's then president Jose Ramos-Horta had been shot and almost killed in his home.
Ms Sword moved temporarily to Rosebud on Melbourne's outskirts in late 2012 as she was undergoing treatment for breast cancer.
Mr Gusmao said Kirsty will continue in her role as the president of ALOLA and will be a frequent visitor to East Timor where their sons were born and raised.
He said he will continue in his new role as East Timor's Minister for Planning and Strategic Investment and will be a frequent visitor to Melbourne, where his sons will have a home as well.
"We face the future with some sadness of course, but with no regrets as our partnership and journey was unique and rich in experience," Mr Gusmao said.
"We are buoyed by the prospect of a peaceful and prosperous Timor-Leste," he said.
Mr Gusmao said he and Kirsty will continue to work together in the interests of East Timor, adding "it is something that our boys understand as it is their legacy."
"With three much loved boys, who carry dual citizenship and are multi-lingual, we remain committed parents and will maintain our family partnership to rear our children and to make Timor-Leste a better place, for them and all children of Timor-Leste," he said.
