Stella Morris, Julian Assange’s partner, has filed a written statement to British authorities expressing her grave concerns for the WikiLeaks founder’s health while he remains incarcerated in Belmarsh Prison, and concerns he may contract coronavirus.
In chilling comments exclusively reported by Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi, Morris recalls how the “most difficult time” in Belmarsh was in the months when Assange was in the Healthcare unit, “in effective solitary confinement for most of the time”.
“He finds isolation and its prospect terrifying. I have feared with strong reason for a long time that I will lose Julian to suicide if there is no way in which he can stop his extradition to the USA. I now fear I may lose him for different reasons and sooner to the virus. I know very well his health is extremely poor and can detail the different aspects of that poor health,” Morris says.
She goes on to describe how she observed her partner on different occasions when he was in the Embassy and “how he struggled with physical crises as well mental”. At Belmarsh however, Assange’s condition grew ever-worse - while in the Healthcare unit, he was taken from a ward into a single cell “for many months”, “in a form of isolation save for a very few hours each day”. She noticed how he was visibly “very diminished…like a withering flower”.
“I observed how he could no longer function coherently. There is no doubt in my mind that experience was one which it would be extraordinarily worrying if it were to be repeated as I believe it is now. It is a matter of general knowledge the future of the coronavirus will require enforcement of whatever forms of isolation, however inadequate, can be maintained in an institutional setting,” Morris laments.
Assange’s dire physical state is surely well-known by British authorities - an internal Crown Prosecution Service email in November 2012 referred to recent BBC World Service radio reports on his declining health, and made clear there was “no question” of him being “allowed out of the Ecuadorian embassy, treated and then allowed to go back”.
“He would be arrested as soon as was appropriate…As for the weight lost, there are many people of my acquaintance (obviously just women) who would always welcome this,” the email states.