Setback for ‘suicidal’ Julian Assange

Julian Assange’s defence psychiatrist had concealed the fact he fathered two children while a fugitive.

Stella Morris speaks to supporters of Julian Assange outside the High Court in London on Wednesday. Picture: Getty Images

Julian Assange has suffered a setback in his fight to avoid extradition after the US government was allowed to highlight that his defence psychiatrist had concealed the fact he fathered two children while a fugitive.

The US has appealed against the decision of Judge Vanessa Baraitser to block Assange’s extradition on the basis that he would be a high suicide risk.

The evidence came from Michael Kopelman, emeritus professor of neuropsychiatry at King’s College London.

The US government said that Justice Baraitser should have disregarded the professor’s evidence because he had initially failed to mention that the WikiLeaks founder had fathered children while living in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

Assange, 50, appeared at the High Court via video from Belmarsh in southeast London. Dozens of supporters, including the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, gathered outside court.

Assange is wanted by the US on hacking and espionage charges relating to WikiLeaks’s publication of hundreds of thou­sands of leaked documents in 2010 and 2011 about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Clair Dobbin QC, representing the US government, said Assange’s self-reported symptoms of mental illness should be scrutinised because of the “extraordinary lengths” he had taken to avoid extradition.

Assange spent seven years holed up in the embassy.

The Times