WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a suicide risk if extradited to US: psychiatrist

The former hacker has severe depression and psychotic symptoms, including hearing imaginary voices and music, the Old Bailey court in London heard

Assange faces 18 charges under the US Espionage Act relating to the 2010 release by WikiLeaks of 500,000 secret files, and is being held in a British prison

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A truck with a billboard of Julian Assange arrives at the Old Bailey court in London as his extradition hearing continues. Photo: AP

Published: 11:00pm, 22 Sep 2020Updated: 2:17am, 23 Sep 2020

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange complained of hearing imaginary voices and music while detained in a high-security British prison, a psychiatrist told his extradition hearing on Tuesday.

Michael Kopelman, a psychiatrist who has interviewed Assange around 20 times, said the former hacker would be a “very high” suicide risk if he were extradited to the United States for leaking military secrets.

He cited as evidence Assange’s “severe depression” and “psychotic symptoms”, which included auditory hallucinations while in solitary confinement in his cell at the high-security Belmarsh Prison in southwest London.

Kopelman told the Old Bailey court in central London that Assange said he hallucinated music and voices saying “you are dust, you are dead, we are coming to get you”.

Assange’s suicidal impulses “arise out of clinical factors … but it is the imminence of extradition that will trigger the attempt”, he added, warning “he will deteriorate substantially” if extradited.

Assange’s partner Stella Moris has previously said she feared he would take his own life, leaving their two young sons without a father.

James Lewis, representing the US government, quizzed Kopelman over the veracity of some of Assange’s claims, suggesting he may have made them up.

Assange faces 18 charges under the US Espionage Act relating to the 2010 release by WikiLeaks of 500,000 secret files detailing aspects of US military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.