‘Depressed’ Assange fights arrest warrant
JULIAN Assange launched a court bid yesterday to overturn his wanted status so he can leave his bolthole in the Ecuadorian embassy.
Before the hearing his lawyer Gareth Peirce said his self-imposed imprisonment had left him with ‘depression, frozen shoulder and a terribly bad tooth’.
The WikiLeaks founder, 46, is free to leave the London building at any time after Scotland Yard abandoned a round-the- clock guard which racked up a £13million bill.
But he refuses, claiming that if he steps outside his diplomatic sanctuary he risks arrest and extradition to the US to face espionage charges.
Earlier this month Ecuador granted him citizenship amid claims that its ambassador wants him out.
At Westminster Magistrates’ Court, another of his lawyers, Mark Summers QC, said a warrant for his arrest has lost its purpose.
It was granted when Assange failed to turn up in court after fleeing to the embassy in 2012 to escape extradition to Sweden to answer allegations of rape. The case he faced there was dropped last May, alongside a European arrest warrant.
Mr Summers said: ‘This is an application concerned with what we say is the impact of the withdrawal of the European arrest warrant.
‘Those representing the Swedish say there is still life in this case but we submit that the… bail warrant has lost its purpose.’
Assange’s legal team also handed medical evidence to chief magistrate Emma Arbuthnot, saying that ‘ his physical and psychological health… are in serious peril’.
Aaron Watkins, representing the Crown Prosecution Service, said it ‘would be absurd were a defendant effectively to be rewarded with immunity to evade proceedings for so long that they fell away’.
Mrs Arbuthnot said she needed more time to consider the case, which will continue next month.