Julian Assange Suffered A Stroke Due To US Extradition Battle, Fiancée Says

https://consortiumnews.com/2021/12/12/would-assanges-stroke-have-mattered-to-the-high-court/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10300037/Julian-Assange-stroke-Belmarsh-prison-Fianc-e-blames-extreme-stress.html
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/12/10/assange-loses-high-court-allows-us-appeal-sends-assange-case-back-to-lower-court/
https://www.tareqhaddad.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021.10.19-%E2%80%93-Assange-Extradition-Hearings-Appeal-%E2%80%93-Sixth_Supplemental_Extradition_Declaration_19_Oct.pdf
https://bridgesforfreedom.media/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/01.-Statement-of-Yancey-Ellis-Final-Paginated.pdf
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/lauri-love-v-usa.pdf
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/10/28/day-two-assange-lawyer-presses-parallels-with-love-case/
https://twitter.com/MailOnline/status/1470152104933310477
https://twitter.com/Doctors4Assange/status/1470079942851448838


News on Sunday that imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange
suffered a stroke on Oct. 27 has raised the question of when the High
Court knew about it and whether it would have influenced its ruling to
overturn a lower court judgment, allowing his extradition to the
United States.

Stella Moris, Assange’s financée and one of his lawyers, told the Mail
on Sunday that doctors determined that the mini-stroke has left
Assange with "a drooping right eyelid, memory problems and signs of
neurological damage."
Getty Images

The Mail reported:

"A 'transient ischaemic attack' – the interruption of the blood
supply to the brain – can be a warning sign of a full stroke. Assange
has since had an MRI scan and is now taking anti-stroke medication.

Ms Moris, 38, a lawyer, said: 'Julian is struggling and I fear
this mini-stroke could be the precursor to a more major attack. It
compounds our fears about his ability to survive the longer this long
legal battle goes on.'"

Moris told the paper: "It urgently needs to be resolved. Look at
animals trapped in cages in a zoo. It cuts their life short. That’s
what’s happening to Julian. The never-ending court cases are extremely
stressful mentally."

She added:

"'I believe this constant chess game, battle after battle, the
extreme stress, is what caused Julian’s stroke on October 27.

He was feeling really unwell, far too ill to follow the hearing,
and he was excused by the judge but could not leave the prison video
room.

'It must have been horrendous hearing a High Court appeal in which
you can’t participate, which is discussing your mental health and your
risk of suicide and in which the US is arguing you are making it all
up.

'He had to sit through all this when he should have been excused.
He was in a truly terrible state. His eyes were out of synch, his
right eyelid would not close, his memory was blurry.'

When Did High Court Know?

It is not clear when the High Court judges learned of this dangerous
deterioration of the WikiLeaks founders’ health. His lawyers likely
made submissions to the court in the weeks after the hearing, leading
up to Friday’s ruling.

In that ruling, the judges accepted lower court Judge Vanessa
Baraitser’s determination that Assange was too ill to be extradited.
The court rejected three of the US grounds of appeal, which challenged
the medical evidence. Confirmation of the stroke exposes the US
contention that Assange is a "malingerer" as a lie. But the High
Court did not accept that smear.

The court also did not challenge the second pillar of Baraitser’s
judgment against extradition: that prison conditions in the US were
too harsh and would lead to Assange’s suicide. The entire reason for
overturning Baraitser and allowing the extradition was the High
Court’s belief that the US is sincere in promising not to put Assange
into the worst of U.S. penal isolation: Special Administrative
Measures (SAMs) or into ADX Florence maximum security prison in
Colorado.

Julian Assange's fiancee accuses UK authorities of playing
'executioner' after Wikileaks founder suffered stroke
https://t.co/2PsqtMR9o1
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) December 12, 2021

The court also bought the line that US prison authorities would
provide adequate health care for Assange. [A defense witness
testified, however, that there are no permanent doctors at the
Alexandria Detention Center where Assange would be held pre-trial.]

So would knowing that he had suffered a stroke have altered the High
Court’s thinking, even though it had already accepted Assange’s
medical diagnosis? Would adding knowledge of the stroke have changed
anything?

Burnett’s Remark

Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett was on the High Court in the Assange
case as well as in 2018 when the court overturned the extradition
order of hacktivist Lauri Love. Love was accused by the US of hacking
into US government computers. Like Assange, Love suffered from
depression and Asperger Syndrome; and like Assange he was deemed by
the High Court to be at high risk of suicide if extradited. However
the court ruled against extraditing Love, and for extraditing Assange.
Why?

The High Court found that Love also suffered from a physical ailment,
namely eczema, that would be exacerbated with extradition. The Burnett
ruling overturning Love’s extradition said:

"All the evidence is that this would be very harmful for his
difficult mental conditions, Asperger Syndrome and depression, linked
as they are; and for his physical conditions, notable eczema, which
would be exacerbated by stress. That in turn would add to his
worsening mental condition, which in its turn would worsen his
physical conditions. There is no satisfactory and sufficiently
specific evidence that treatment for this combination of severe
problems would be available in the sort of prisons to which he would
most likely be sent."

[Noteworthy is that Burnett in this judgement said there is "no
satisfactory and sufficiently specific evidence that treatment for
this combination of severe problems would be available in the sort of
prisons to which [Love] would most likely be sent." Yet in the Assange
case Burnett accepted the U.S. assurance that there would be such
treatment available for Assange. Burnett also accepted, however, the
U.S. assurance that Assange would not be sent to that “sort of
prison.”]

James Lewis QC, the prosecutor for the US, argued, ironically on the
day of the stroke, that the Love case was not a precedent for Assange
because Love had suffered from physical ailments, where Assange had
not. Lewis said the purely psychological test from the Turner v.
Government of the USA case was applied in Assange’s case, but not in
Love’s.

On the following day, Assange lawyer Edward Fitzgerald QC, made a
strong argument that the Love case was indeed a precedent for Assange.
He pointed out that both Love and Assange were diagnosed with
depression and Asperger Syndrome, which increases a risk of suicide.
Fitzgerald said the High Court in Love had looked into the future to
see that extradition to the U.S. would be oppressive because of the
high risk of suicide.

BREAKING: Statement on Assange's deteriorating
health:https://t.co/nLkRxV3wkZ

"This latest medical emergency adds to the already dire state of
Mr. Assange’s health owing to his prolonged psychological torture."

The torture and medical neglect of Julian Assange must end now.
— Doctors for Assange (@Doctors4Assange) December 12, 2021

At that point Burnett interrupted Fitzgerald from the bench. “It is a
completely different case,” he said. According to former SBS
Australian news presenter Mary Kostakidis, who viewed the appeal
hearing via a video-link, Burnett said Love was different because he
had a physical ailment, namely eczema. Burnett did not show up for the
reading of the summary judgment on Friday at the High Court.

A Very Serious Physical Ailment

If indeed a physical ailment is the main legal matter separating Love
from Assange then that would seem to change with the news that Assange
had a stroke. The High Court may have considered that new evidence,
though, because there are no physical ailments mentioned in
Baraitser’s decision on Assange that was before the High Court.

In the end it probably would not have mattered. The High Court ruling
accepted all of the medical evidence about Assange’s psychological
condition and still ruled he should be extradited. That probably would
not have changed had a stroke been added to his medical status before
the ruling.

That is because despite accepting the medical evidence, the High Court
ruled for extradition solely on the basis of the US assurances that
Assange would not be put into SAMs and that he would receive adequate
medical treatment, presumably for a stroke too.

There is another difference between Love and Assange. Love was
expendable to the United States. Assange is not. He is Too Big to
Free. By reporting the truth, Assange has threatened the legitimacy of
an entire system built on lies. The British judiciary is part of that
system. It is very unlikely that knowledge of the stroke would have
made any difference to the High Court.