Julian Assange ‘a suicide risk’, says defence

Julian Assange’s legal team tells the Old Bailey the US request for his extradition should be denied because of his mental health.

Julian Assange is driven out of Southwark Crown Court in London in 2019. Picture: AFP

Julian Assange’s legal team has told the Old Bailey that the United States extradition request should be denied because of Assange’s “mental conditions and the high risk of suicide’’ and that President Donald Trump had decided to make an example of him.

The court has heard that the proceedings are an abuse of process because the extradition is a “classic political offence’’ which is prohibited by the Anglo-US extradition treaty.

Assange’s lawyers have also argued extradition would expose him to a denial of a right to a fair trial, is a flagrant denial of his rights to freedom of expression and would expose him to inhumane and degrading treatment in a US prison.

But the US counsel says Mr Trump is not responsible for the extradition request as “extradition relations are with a state, not its president” and not related to the upcoming election. The US lawyers also told the court that Assange’s health problems are not relevant to the extradition request because “neither mental health problems, nor Asperger syndrome prevented Assange’s solicitation of, and orchestration of, the leaking of materials from the highest levels of government and state agencies”.

Supporters of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and members of the media gather at the exit to the Old Bailey as a van believed to be carrying Assange leaves the court.

In a fresh document presented to the court on Monday, Assange’s lawyers said: “He (Assange) was an obvious symbol of all that Trump condemned, having brought American war crimes to the attention of the world. They targeted him because of his exposure of American war crimes and because of the threat that his revelations and continuing work posed to their geo-political agenda.’’

The first witness for Assange, media professor Mark Feldstein, submitted in written evidence that President Trump’s ‘‘use of government power to punish his media critics’’ is further identified as a “deliberate attempt to ‘stifle the exercise of the constitutional protections of free speech and the free press’’’.

Judge Vanessa Baraitser refused a request by Assange’s legal team to excise new parts of the extraction request that were included in a superseding indictment issued six weeks ago. She also refused an adjournment application that would have delayed the case into the new year.

Assange lawyers claim the Americans are linking Assange with another famed US whistleblower Edward Snowden.

John Shipton, father of Julian Assange, speaks to the media outside the Old Bailey court in central London.

“Insofar as it adds significant materials, these are designed to depict Julian Assange as a continuing threat to the US and to link him to Edward Snowden,’’ the court was told.

Snowden, a former CIA employee, leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013 and fled to Hong Kong before seeking asylum in Russia.

While Assange is accused of conspiring with Manning, the former military intelligence analyst, to unlawfully obtain highly classified material and then disclose unredacted names of sources in publishing the material, he is accused of assisting Snowden to try and evade arrest in Hong Kong in June 2013.

The superseding indictment also accuses Assange of recruiting hackers at conferences in Europe and Asia, and of conspiring with members of hacking groups known as LulzSec and Anonymous and of intruding into a bank computer in Iceland.

“Assisting a whistleblower in Hong Kong; attempting to evade arrest. How that is said to be criminal activity is anybody’s guess,” Mark Summers, QC, for Assange, said.

Stella Moris, centre,, the partner Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, arrives with Australian human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson, at the Old Bailey court.

Mr Summers said the new indictment, coming 18 months after legal proceedings had started and without any warning had brought about a “period of confusion’’ and it had since become clear that the charges weren’t just the same.

He said the Americans were trying to introduce dual criminality --whereby the charges would be an offence in both the UK and the US, thus bolstering the extradition request.

“It is no exaggeration to say this is a resounding and important new development,’’ Mr Summers said.

Meanwhile the judge has banned members of the public and other parties such as Amnesty International and other human rights organisations from watching the Old Bailey proceedings by a remote cloud server, despite them being sent a link to take part.

Judge Baraitser has also ruled that the witnesses called by Mr Assange are restricted to summarising their written evidence, to 30 minutes each.

The extradition trial, delayed because of coronavirus, is expected to last until October.

Assange’s lawyer Edward Fitzgerald told the court that this was the first time he was able to see and speak to his client since the case was adjourned in late February. The judge allowed him an hour to confer privately with Assange.

Assange wore a suit and tie and clutched a wad of documents in the dock. He replied to a question if he consented to being extradited to the United States, with a firm “no’’.

The US Department of Justice has indicted Assange on 17 counts under the US Espionage Act and another of helping Manning access information under an anonymous name, which could result in 175 years in prison.

The trial continues.