Assange extradition blocked over health
A JUDGE has ruled WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should not be extradited to the United States because of his mental health.
Judge Vanessa Baraitser said there was a “real risk” Assange, 49, would be locked up at the Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) in Florence, Colorado – home to terrorist Abu Hamza – if convicted.
There are currently nine inmates subject to special administrative measures (Sams) for espionage inside the prison.
If made subject to the full restrictions, Assange would be kept in conditions of “significant isolation” and “contact with his family will be curtailed,” the judge said. “Time out of his cell will be spent exercising in a small room or cage alone.”
The judge found Assange suffers from a recurrent depressive disorder and accepted the evidence of Dr Quinton Deeley, a consultant neuropsychiatrist, that he suffers from high-functioning Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Asperger’s.
“Notwithstanding the strong and constant support he received from his family and friends Mr Assange has remained either severely or moderately clinically depressed throughout his detention at HMP Belmarsh,” she said.
At an evidential hearing in the autumn, psychiatrist Professor Michael Kopelman said Assange was at a “high risk” of taking his own life, having made preparations including confessing to a Catholic priest. Prof Kopelman told the Old Bailey he visited Assange some 20 times in Belmarsh, where he is still being held on remand ahead of a bail hearing tomorrow.
Assange has been held in Belmarsh since he was carried out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London by police before being arrested for breaching his bail conditions in April 2019.
He had entered the building in 2012 after exhausting all legal avenues to avoid extradition to Sweden to face sex offence allegations, which he has always denied and were eventually dropped.
Assange is wanted in the US to face an 18-count indictment, alleging a plot to hack computers and a conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information.
The prosecution followed WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents in 2010 and 2011 relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, as well as diplomatic cables.
Prosecutors say Assange helped US defence analyst Chelsea Manning breach the Espionage Act in unlawfully obtaining material, was complicit in hacking by others, and published classified information that put the lives of US informants in danger.
Assange denies plotting with Manning to crack an encrypted password on US Department of Defence computers and says there is no evidence that anyone’s safety was put at risk.
His lawyers had said he faced up to 175 years in jail if convicted, although the US government said the sentence was more likely to be between four and six years.