Julian Assange shows psychological torture symptoms, says UN expert

UK government urged not to extradite WikiLeaks co-founder to US where he faces decades in prison

Assange has been moved to the health ward of Belmarsh prison, London, where he has been serving a 50-week sentence for skipping bail while fighting extradition to the US. “In the course of the past nine years, Mr Assange has been exposed to persistent, progressively severe abuse ranging from systematic judicial persecution and arbitrary confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy, to his oppressive isolation, harassment and surveillance inside the embassy, and from deliberate collective ridicule, insults and humiliation, to open instigation of violence and even repeated calls for his assassination,” Melzer will say on Friday. Melzer, who is urging the UK government not to extradite Assange to the US or to any other state failing to provide reliable guarantees against his onward transfer to the US, criticised the way in which Assange’s case was handled after police took him from the embassy.

Source: archive.fo