Assange's wife fears 'catastrophic' health decline in UK jail after extradition decision

MOSCOW: The wife of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Stella, said on Monday that his health had deteriorated to the extreme in British prison and the impact of the UK home secretary's decision to okay his extradition to the US can be "catastrophic" for him, reported Sputnik.

This past Friday, WikiLeaks tweeted that UK Home Secretary Priti Patel had approved Assange's extradition to the United States, where the journalist could face up to 175 years in jail. Rights organisations condemned her decision as anti-democratic.

"We were preparing for the worst but you can never really prepare for it. It is a very stressful situation," Stella told Australian radio ABC.

She said she last saw Assange last Tuesday, when he appeared "very anxious." His physical health, too, "extremely deteriorated" over the years in prison, especially after he suffered a "mini stroke" in October, Assange's wife said.

"His health is in decline, and we're extremely worried that any moment he could have a catastrophic health episode inside Belmarsh prison without the ability to get emergency treatment," she added.

Assange will be "appealing both against the US government and the UK Home Secretary's decision," his wife said.

WikiLeaks was founded by Assange on October 4, 2006, but rose to prominence in 2010 when it began to publish leaks of classified government information, especially from the US. Assange is wanted by the US on espionage charges after WikiLeaks published thousands of classified documents that shed light on war crimes committed by American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Assange hosted "The World Tomorrow" show on Russia state-sponsored RT channel, which premiered in April 2012.

The WikiLeaks founder has been on remand at the Belmarsh maximum-security prison in southeast London since October 2020, after serving an 11-month sentence for breaking bail conditions. In 2012, instead of appearing in court as his bail conditions demanded, Assange sought shelter in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he remained until 2019 over concerns that he might otherwise end up extradited to the US.

-- BERNAMA