According to his wife, Julian Assange’s condition is getting worse by the day

According to Julian Assange’s wife, the Wikileaks founder is increasingly suffering from years of incarceration in a high-security prison in London.

Stella Assange told reporters outside Belmarsh Prison, where Assange has now been held for about four years. “But he’s not trying to give up and keep fighting.”

The US accuses Assange of stealing and publishing secret materials from military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and endangering the lives of informants. Supporters see him as a courageous journalist who exposed war crimes. The legal wrangling over the possible extradition of Assange to the United States has been dragging on for years. The 51-year-old has been sitting since 2019 imprisoned without conviction. He faces many years in prison.

The Reporters Without Borders organization, which has been campaigning for Assange’s release for years, said Tuesday morning it briefly denied a rare meeting with him in prison. Actually, their representatives had been given an appointment to meet with Assange and get an impression.

“It is further proof that there is nothing normal about this case,” Christophe Deloire, Secretary General of Reporters Without Borders, said outside prison. Independent observers are systematically hindered by the British authorities. The NGO representatives were not admitted because they were journalists. In contrast, in the lawsuit, some of them were not admitted because they were not considered press.

(yam/sda/dpa)