Julian Assange relayed how he “binge-watched” the suicide of the former Bosnian Croat general in a U.N. courtroom three years ago, a doctor who visited the WikiLeaks founder on several occasions while he was in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London told an extradition hearing Thursday.
Dr. Sondra Crosby, associate professor of medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine, said she noted a visible deterioration in both his mental and physical state over her four visits from Oct. 2017 to the embassy where Assange was living. He had been granted asylum by Ecuador five years earlier over fears of extradition to the U.S. related to his WikiLeaks work.
Crosby told London’s Old Bailey criminal court that on a visit in February 2018, Assange had first described thoughts of suicide and how he was thinking about it “very deliberately" and that he had “binge-watched” the suicide a few months earlier of Slobodan Praljak at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
Seconds after an appeals judge confirmed his 20-year sentence for war crimes during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, Praljak proclaimed his innocence and then drank from a small bottle containing potassium cyanide. He collapsed in court and died in a Dutch hospital about two hours later.
The dramatic scene of the 72-year-old former commander of Bosnian Croat military forces lifting his trembling right hand to his mouth and drinking the liquid was streamed live on the court’s website.
She said Assange described how he “freeze-framed" and “analyzed” Praljak's face while he took his own life.
Assange's lawyers have argued this week that their client could very well try to kill himself if he is sent to the United States to face espionage charges, and have pointed to his deteriorating mental state during his seven-year stay at the Ecuadorian Embassy and since his ejection from there in April 2019 to a British prison.
Crosby also said that in a visit to Belmarsh Prison in London in October 2019, Assange “appeared to be severely depressed” and that he had talked about having thoughts of suicide “hundreds of times a day.”
“He seemed to be in very dire straits,” she said.
U.S. prosecutors have indicted the 49-year-old on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over WikiLeaks’ publication of secret American military documents a decade ago. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.
Lawyers acting on behalf of the U.S. government have sought to show that Assange's mental state is not as bad as claimed by witnesses acting for the defense and that he wouldn't be subjected to improper conditions if sent to the pre-trial facilities at Alexandria Detention Center in Virginia.
It was at that facility that Chelsea Manning, the former intelligence analyst who leaking a trove of documents to WikiLeaks, tried to take her own life earlier this year. Though President Barack Obama commuted the remainder of her 35-year sentence in 2017, Manning has been in jail since May 2019 for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks.
Psychologist Nigel Blackwood, who assessed Assange at Belmarsh, rebutted defense experts on the extent of Assange’s condition, saying his suicide risk was “manageable."
“I think there is some risk of suicide but that risk has to be carefully managed at Belmarsh," he said. "The risk factors are modifiable and he engages with treatment available to manage that risk.”
Assange, he added, is a “very resilient and very resourceful man,” who is at “the very mildest end” of the autism spectrum. Blackwood noted that Assange has been “highly functioning to a very high level in running a very successful organization."
He did say that Assange's mental health benefits from being able to have access to family and friends and recently to the Samaritans helpline in the U.K. aimed at providing support to anyone in emotional distress or thinking about suicide.
“I think there is some risk of suicide attempt linked to extradition, but not substantial risk,” he told the court. “His suicide risk may increase in a much more deleterious environment without access to things that he values.”
As well as arguing that extradition would pose a threat to Assange's life, his defense team say that he is a journalist and entitled to First Amendment protections for the publication of leaked documents that exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The extradition hearing is due to last until early October.
AP Newsroom
Fri Sep 25 2020
Assange relayed how he -binge-watched- the suicide of the former Bosnian Croat general in a U.N. courtroom three years ago. AP file pic
Peruntukan Pembangkang: Terpulang untuk Muhyiddin kata apa - TPM Fadillah
Terpulang kepada pihak pembangkang untuk mempersoalkan keikhlasan Kerajaan berhubung draf perjanjian persefahaman (MoU) peruntukan pembangkang, kata Timbalan Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof.
Ketua Whip Kerajaan Perpaduan itu berkata, beliau enggan melayani sindiran bekas Perdana Menteri yang juga Pengerusi Perikatan Nasional, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin tentang isu tersebut.
#AWANI745
Ketua Whip Kerajaan Perpaduan itu berkata, beliau enggan melayani sindiran bekas Perdana Menteri yang juga Pengerusi Perikatan Nasional, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin tentang isu tersebut.
#AWANI745
Pelantikan ahli lembaga baharu DNB kemajuan penting dalam penyusunan semula rangkaian 5G - Gobind
Gobind berkata perkembangan terkini itu merupakan satu langkah penting ke arah memenuhi komitmen kerajaan terhadap pelaksanaan dasar 5G dwi rangkaian.
SSPA terbaik pernah diperkenalkan kerajaan - PM Anwar
Kerajaan memberi jaminan Sistem Saraan Perkhidmatan Awam (SSPA) yang bakal diumumkan dalam tempoh terdekat, sebagai antara yang terbaik pernah diperkenalkan, kata Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
Namun, katanya lagi, langkah itu bakal membabitkan implikasi kewangan yang tertinggi berbanding yang pernah dilakukan sebelum ini.
#AWANI745
Namun, katanya lagi, langkah itu bakal membabitkan implikasi kewangan yang tertinggi berbanding yang pernah dilakukan sebelum ini.
#AWANI745
KESUMA tawar lebih 3,000 pekerjaan industri hijau dengan gaji RM3,000 hingga RM16,000
Kementerian Sumber Manusia menawarkan lebih 3,000 peluang pekerjaan dalam industri hijau menerusi Karnival Kemahiran dan Kerjaya Hijau KESUMA 2024.
Kanak-kanak maut jatuh kondominium ketika ibu keluar ambil kakak di sekolah
Mangsa dipercayai telah membuka pintu koridor rumah yang tidak berkunci dan memanjat dinding koridor hingga terjatuh ke bawah.
ANCC2024: Astro, NACSA bekerjasama anjur 'coding challenge'
ANCC2024 membuka peluang kepada pelajar daripada institusi awam dan swasta untuk mengambil bahagian dalam mencipta penyelesaian inovatif bagi memerangi ancaman dalam talian.
AWANI Borneo [25/04/2024] - Istiadat ketenteraan | DUN Sabah | Ringankan beban pelajar B40
Laporan berita padat dan ringkas dari Borneo bersama Nickyson Nyambar;
#AWANIBorneo 25 April 2024
Jasad Joanna Felicia selamat disemadi dengan istiadat ketenteraan
Tiga RUU diluluskan pada hari terakhir sidang DUN Sabah
Simpati nasib pelajar B40, Politeknik Tawau lancarkan inisiatif food bank
#AWANIBorneo 25 April 2024
Jasad Joanna Felicia selamat disemadi dengan istiadat ketenteraan
Tiga RUU diluluskan pada hari terakhir sidang DUN Sabah
Simpati nasib pelajar B40, Politeknik Tawau lancarkan inisiatif food bank
PRK Kuala Kubu Baharu: Pemimpin masyarakat India diminta jangan tabur fitnah - Ramanan
Pemimpin masyarakat India diingatkan supaya tidak menyebarkan fitnah dan maklumat salah sebagai senjata bagi meraih undi menjelang PRK Kuala Kubu Baharu.
PBM mampu penuhi permintaan darah yang semakin meningkat
Timbalan Menteri Kesihatan Datuk Lukanisman Awang Sauni berkata, kaedah PBM Ini juga satu kaedah alternatif dalam proses transfusi darah kerana ia dapat meningkatkan pengurusan serta penggunaan darah untuk pesakit secara optimum.
#AWANIBorneo
#AWANIBorneo
Politeknik Tawau lancarkan Food Bank ringankan beban pelajar B40
Pengarah Politeknik Tawau, Md Nor Abdul Halimberkata pihaknya menyahut saranan kerajaan untuk mewujudkan foodbank di kampus bagi membantu meringankan beban pelajar dari golongan B40
#AWANIBorneo
#AWANIBorneo
Pilihan raya Pakistan: Perkhidmatan rangkaian mudah alih digantung, sempadan ditutup
Pihak berkuasa Pakistan menggantung perkhidmatan mudah alih dan menutup sempadan dengan negara jiran Afghanistan dan Iran selepas insiden pengeboman.
150,000 wanita dan sektor kesihatan, hak tidak diabaikan - Menteri Kesihatan Awam Afghanistan
Seramai 150,000 wanita berkhidmat dalam sektor kesihatan Afghanistan ketika ini dengan pelbagai cabang kepakaran.
Afghanistan ketika ini 100 peratus aman - Menteri Kesihatan Awam Afghanistan
Situasi di Afghanistan jauh lebih baik berbanding 20 tahun lalu yang menyaksikan ratusan orang maut akibat peperangan.
Afghanistan perlu raih semula penghormatan untuk membangun - Penganalisis
Afghanistan perlu memecahkan persepsi negatif terhadap negaranya dan meraih semula penghormatan komuniti antarabangsa untuk membangun.
Genosid di Gaza hancurkan 'kredibiliti' pertubuhan dunia - Afghanistan
Afghanistan mengutuk sekeras-kerasnya rejim Israel itu kerana meneruskan pengeboman yang membunuh ratusan rakyat Palestin sejak jeda kemanusiaan tamat pada Jumaat.
Gempa bumi landa barat laut Afghanistan, 100 cedera
Sekurang-kurangnya 100 orang cedera selepas satu lagi gempa bumi kuat berukuran 6.3 pada skala Richter menggegarkan barat laut Afghanistan pada Ahad.
80 cedera dalam gempa bumi kuat di Afghanistan
Menurut penduduk tempatan, kebanyakan mangsa yang cedera telah dibawa ke hospital.
Angka kematian gempa bumi Afghanistan meningkat lebih 2,000 orang
Lebih 2,000 orang maut selepas beberapa gempa bumi kuat menggegarkan barat Afghanistan pada Sabtu.
Gempa 5.6 magnitud landa barat laut Afghanistan
Menurut Pusat Penyelidikan Geosains Jerman (GFZ), bacaan gempa yang dikesan di kedalaman 10 km itu diturunkan daripada catatan awal 6.2 magnitud.
Kedutaan Afghanistan di New Delhi ditutup
Misi yang terletak di kawasan diplomatik Chanakyapuri itu bakal menamatkan operasi mulai 1 Oktober.