Julian Assange says he 'hears voices' in prison

WikiLeaks founder said to be suffering from psychosis and severe depression

FILE PHOTO: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaves Southwark Crown Court after being sentenced in London, Britain, May 1, 2019. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls/File Photo
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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange complained of hearing imaginary voices and music while detained in a high-security British prison, a psychiatrist who assessed him told his extradition hearing on Tuesday.

Dr Michael Kopelman, who has interviewed Assange about 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 Mr 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 south-west London.

Dr Kopelman told the Old Bailey court in central London that Assange said he hallucinated music and voices that said: “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,” the psychiatrist said.

“He will deteriorate substantially,” if extradited, Dr Kopelman said.

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

Protesters stand opposite the Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey, in London, Monday, Sept. 21, 2020, as the Julian Assange extradition hearing to the US continues. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
Protesters outside the Old Bailey on Monday. AP

James Lewis, representing the US government, quizzed Dr 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.

Washington claims he helped intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to steal the documents before exposing the identities of confidential sources around the world.

If convicted, Assange – who has been held at Belmarsh for the past 16 months – could be jailed for up to 175 years.

US authorities recently laid out new evidence.

The extradition hearing is the latest in a series of legal battles faced by Assange since the leaks a decade ago.

In 2010, he was charged with sexual assault and rape in Sweden, which he denied.

He was in Britain at the time but dodged an attempt to extradite him to Sweden by claiming political asylum in Ecuador’s embassy in London.

For seven years he lived in a small apartment inside the embassy, but after a change of government in Ecuador, Quito lost patience with its guest and turned him over to British police in April 2019.