‘No-one extradited from UK to US has committed suicide,’ US tells court docket in Assange appeal
A British judge has given of us accused by the US a “trump card” to lead sure of extradition by discovering in favour of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, a court docket heard on 27 October.
District Like Vanessa Baraitser dominated in January 2021 that it’d be “oppressive” to ship Assange for trial in the US, where he would be at high wretchedness of suicide.
Nevertheless James Lewis QC, representing the US, educated a hearing on the Royal Courts of Justice that the judge had applied the rotten ultimate-attempting tests.
The court docket used to be originally educated that Assange used to be too ill to assist this day’s hearing, however he joined the court docket by video hyperlink from Belmarsh prison in South East London some 40 minutes later.
Wearing a white shirt, darkish tie, and a black face covering, Assange spent unprecedented of the hearing sat at one cease of the video room, with handiest his reflection viewed to the prison camera.
Prosecutors educated the hearing on the Royal Courts of Justice that the US government had now given now diplomatic assurances to Assange over his treatment that marked “sea change” in the case if he were extradited.
Talking on the first day of a two-day hearing, Lewis educated the court docket claims by Assange’s defence crew that the US would violate its assurances over Assange’s treatment in the US had “no basis really”.
Expert witnesses had previously testified that Assange used to be seemingly to be positioned under particular administrative measures (SAMs) – described by witnesses as a invent of solitary confinement – and held in a Supermax prison under administrative segregation with restricted contact with other prisoners.
Lewis quoted evidence from US prosecutor Gordon Kromberg that prisoners positioned under administrative segregation were ready to debate with every other via walls and doors, and were ready to affiliate with other prisoners.
Placement in administrative segregation has no impact on the ability of prisoners to meet their lawyers, he said.
“That on my own destroys the argument about solitary confinement because he can meet at any time with his lawyers,” Lewis educated the court docket.
Like made errors
The district judge had wrongly interpreted Portion 91 of the Extradition Act 2003 by pondering the impact of extradition of Assange on his future mental health.
The final note test used to be whether or no longer Assange’s new mental snarl in the UK sooner than extradition meant he used to be at chance of suicide.
“One has to have a study out of no longer going actual into a crystal ball ability in deciding what might perhaps presumably well or couldn’t happen,” Lewis educated the court docket.
The district judge acknowledged that the US took measures to forestall suicide, however she essentially based mostly her possibility now to no longer extradite him on the grounds that Assange had the mind to avoid suicide prevention measures.
“Nobody who has ever been extradited from the UK to the US has ever committed suicide,” said Lewis, adding that the judge’s possibility now to no longer extradite Assange as a result of his functionality of circumventing suicide measures turns actual into a “trump card”.
“The ability taken by the district judge is to erect a barrier to extradition that actual kind can’t be met by our extradition companions,” he said.
It might perhaps perhaps probably presumably well by no manner be said in UK lawsuits that someone who “committed crimes of the magnitude of Assange” couldn’t be place on trial, Lewis educated the court docket.
Clinical evidence must quiet be brushed apart
Acting sooner than the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett of Maldon and Lord Justice Holroyde, Lewis also argued that evidence given by Assange’s precept psychiatric educated must quiet both be stumbled on inadmissible or given microscopic weight.
The US argued that educated ogle and psychiatrist Michael Kopelman had critically misled the court docket by failing to expose Assange’s relationship with his fiancée Stella Moris in his initial document.
Moris gave “vital evidence” in Kopelman’s document, however nowhere does the reader realize that she used to be in a relationship with Assange and the mom of his formative years, Lewis educated the court docket.
Kopelman had signed a explain of fact saying that he had endeavoured to consist of anything in his document which might perhaps perhaps presumably well be detrimental to his opinion.
That explain used to be “fallacious”, said Lewis. “The prosecution had no idea that Ms Moris used to be his companion and the mom of his formative years till Mr Assange made a bail utility and elected to deploy recordsdata about his formative years,” he added.
Lewis took the court docket via Kopelman’s oral evidence, citing examples where Assange used to be recorded as having interaction with fellow cell mates, exercising and staring at television.
The prosecutor argued that Kopelman had no longer valuable examples recorded by prison workers that contradicted his findings that Assange had severe depression and psychotic episodes.
District judge Vanessa Baraitser had chosen to take hang of Kopelman’s evidence to the evidence of other educated witnesses “with out giving cogent the rationalization why”, said Lewis.
Unjustifiable claims
Talking for Assange, Edward Fitzgerald QC said that the district judge had given a careful judgment and had region out clearly why she most neatly-most traditional the evidence of Kopelman to other scientific examiners who gave evidence.
The judge stumbled on that Kopelman had did no longer expose facts on Assange’s relationship, however that however he gave impartial evidence to the court docket.
The judge also stumbled on that Kopelman’s actions were an “understandable human response” to being requested to withhold the connection between Assange and Moris confidential. “By September, this used to be a matter of history,” Fitzgerald said.
He added that the prosecution had “made a total load of unjustifiable ideas” that Kopelman had no longer valuable objects from his document.
Nevertheless the judge stumbled on that Kopelman’s overview of the medial data used to be more compressive and ultimate-attempting than scientific examiners exhibiting for the prosecution. “One must quiet appreciate her findings,” he said, adding that he prosecutions objections are for sure an strive to re-litigate the case to reach a odd .
Assange has been on suicide security from the delivery of his time in prison, there were masses of occasions where he mentioned self-injure, and he called the prison Samaritans on masses of occasions.
Fitzgerald said that he favorite there were some entries in the prison notes suggesting Assange used to be in actual kind spirits, however the overall impression is of a “miserable and despairing man”.
The judge has given a “total sequence of causes” why she idea the evidence of Kopelman and one other defence health worker were ultimate-attempting.
US Assurances are no longer new evidence
Lewis, representing the US, educated the court docket that the judge ought to be pleased notified the US of her provisional seek recordsdata from that Assange would seemingly be held in SAMs in the US.
He said that the prosecution’s role used to be there used to be no proper wretchedness of SAMs, however that the judge rejected the argument. “It used to be the discovering in opposition to us that precipitated the requirement to present assurances [about Assange’s treatment in the US],” he added.
Fitzgerald said that the assurances be pleased reach very late in the day and there might perhaps be no such thing as a cause they be pleased to quiet be admitted as evidence.
The case continues.