 Welcome to CN Live's ongoing coverage of Drillian Assange's extradition hearing at Old Bailey in London. This is Joe Laurier reporting for CN Live. Today was day 13. We are still on the medical issues, mostly psychological, but today also his physical conditions. To see Drillian Assange in that glass cage while he's being talked about in this way. It became quite emotional today, particularly the description of his physical conditions by Dr. Sandra Crosby. But before we get to that, I was at the end of the day of testimony. We had only one other witness today, and that was a prosecution witness, the second one. And only the second one, they were only calling two. This is another forensic psychiatrist. His name is Nigel Blackwood, he's with the National Health Service. And he was brought basically to refute everything that was said by Michael Koppelman. Thank you. Michael Koppelman, who was a defense witness who made various statements about Drillian Assange suffering from a severe depression and having a high risk of suicide, of having being on the autism spectrum and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Blackwood refuted all of those four points in his time on the stand with James Lewis in the role now of direct examiner, not cross-examiner. That was done by Fitzgerald. And during Fitzgerald's cross-examination, there were two really kind of major dramatic moments. I don't know if there were bombshells, but they were sort of got-your-moments where he exposed the witness for the prosecution. Blackwood, I'll get to that in a moment. Just to go over briefly, Blackwood said, again, that he only suffered from moderate depression, not severe. By the way, he had examined him back in March of 2020, I believe, was 2020. And he wrote his report in April. He saw him twice, and he had a total of four hours of conversation with Assange at Belmarsh Prison. So he has no post-traumatic stress, no autism traits, not a high risk of suicide. He says, yes, that he's talked about suicide, but he thinks it's calf, can be carefully managed and treated. And that this is key, he thinks Julian Assange can resist the impulse to kill himself. That he, with the medication, with the psychological treatments, he not being in isolation anymore, but this feeling of Assange to kill himself, which we heard a lot more about a little bit later, would be controlled by Assange. And he also said at one point, this was an interesting, and I want to read it directly, the whole quote from Blackwood. He testified that in speaking with him in these four hours that Assange could concentrate, his gestures and posture were appropriate, that he becomes animated about the political nature of his trial, and his expected treatment in the United States, and he gets animated and speaks in detail in a monologue that can be interrupted about these things. He, Blackwood goes on to say, he considered me naive about my understanding of his case. And Assange said, Carpelman did not have a political dimension to his report. So he was very keen to give me the political dimension and to try to exercise editorial control over my report. So Assange there is quite aware, in that case anyway, of speaking to these two doctors and there were many who examined him. And that was another part of the direct examination by James Lewis, where he once again went over these prison notes from each month, starting from 2019, that Assange was in Belmont. Each of these prison notes were from examinations by doctors there who said he was alert, he made good eye contact, he had good humor, he was playing pool, basically making it out that he's completely normal, that he has some moderate or mild depression, and sometimes he thought about suicide, but nothing to worry about. It could all be managed, he's fine, everything's fine. And Carpelman rejected all of that, but of course this is why Lewis brought Blackwood on the stand today, so that he could confirm all of these notes from the prison, that there was basically nothing to worry about, and Assange was not suffering from all of these ailments that the defense was saying, although we didn't hear Lewis bring up the idea that he was malingering, in other words faking it, which was quite a disturbing moment in yesterday's testimony, that was pretty much what Blackwood had to say, and that was the reason he was brought there and he fulfilled his purpose for the prosecution, and then Edward Fitzgerald for the defense got a crack at cross-examining him, and I say his style of cross-examination is quite different than Lewis, but I think he's as good as Lewis is, and he's polite about it, but he was very forceful, and there were two moments in particular where that happened. When the cross-examination began, basically Fitzgerald was trying to get him to talk about the prison US prison conditions and whether Assange should be sent there, but he asked him whether it would be appropriate to put someone suffering from depression and isolation in prison, and Blackwood said that depressed people can be treated in isolation, but there is a potential to exacerbate mental illness. It depends on what's available to him, beyond telephone calls, access to social networks, and so on. Fitzgerald asked if he'd been, if he's deprived of these things, would he seriously exacerbate his condition, and Blackwood admitted he may do. Fitzgerald interjected, he clearly would, and Blackwood said, Mr. Assange has proven himself a very resilient man. Fitzgerald then asked Blackwood was he aware of mental recommendations that prison isolation should be avoided with prisoners who have mental issues? Blackwood admitted he had, and he wanted to know whether he knew that of all the suicides in US prisons, 50% of them are from inmates who are in isolation or in solitary confinement, but that the total percentage of the US prison population that are in solitary confinement is only 3% to 8%. So this very small part of the US prison population accounts for 50% of all the suicides in US prisons. The way Blackwood rebutted that was to say that no matter what those statistics say, there's still a higher rate of suicide in British prisons than in US prisons. That came up yesterday in the defense, in the prosecution witness as well. So the prosecution of government trying to make the point that it's worse in a British prison, there's more suicide in a British prison, so that should not prevent Assange from being extradited to a US prison because they're looking at equivalency here between British and American prisons if the defense can demonstrate that the US prison is a hellhole and that it's far more inhumane than any prison in the United Kingdom that that's an argument why not to extradite him because there has to be dual criminality in the law and an equivalency in the prison system. So again Blackwood said there's more suicides in Britain. Now Fitzgerald then asked would it directly now not just in general about its patient with with depression, but would it be wise to send Mr. Assange given this condition to be sent to isolation and Blackwood responded depends again on the individual settings and he pointed out that with COVID-19 in the British prisons there was a great fear that there would be an escalation of suicides and that hadn't been borne out so we have to be careful with we have to be careful with predictions. Here is a really there were two moments here I think that I really want to concentrate on. The first one was we heard in the morning testimony on direct examination that Assange have been sent to the prison ward in June 2019 and we all remember when he was sent there people who are following Assange's case closely he was in the general population he was then sent sent to an isolation medical ward or the prison hospital and he was there isolated and nobody knew exactly why that happened was there some serious health issue that he had that's what one would assume but no it was and I was told this by someone at the time on background off the record I never reported it I never mentioned I'm not going to say who told me but someone who was in a position to know that the reason Assange was sent to that medical ward basically in isolation was because of the video that leaked out in June of 2019 that ruptly got a hold of and put on the internet and many every one of us saw that where Assange seems to be smiling and laughing and conversing with prisoners and it was clearly someone holding a telephone phone video camera and somehow this got leaked out of the prison nobody really knows exactly how that happened if there was an investigation it was never made public who took the video how it got leaked outside to be shown but it was because of that video that Assange was sent to isolation in the medical ward this is what Blackwood admitted so that's what I'd heard and that's confirmed in the courtroom today that that's why he was sent to the medical ward because of that video so on cross examination Fitzgerald asked him if he was aware that at 2 30 p.m on that very day that he was sent to isolation after the video that prison notes show that he exhibited ideations or ideas or some indications if he was thinking of self-harm that day now why wasn't that in your report Mr. Blackwood Mr. Fitzgerald wanted to know why would he leave out that on the very day that they sent him to the medical ward he indeed had in some way acted out that it was noted that he may harm himself and that's why they sent him there that's an enormously important thing to leave out and shows in frankly bias he had been behaving that way for a few days it was at 2 30 that day that they sent him there that they put that in there now uh Fitzgerald is sorry Lewis is fond of trying to show uncover bias in the witnesses he's cross examining and with some monocle monocle of success I don't think very much but here Fitzgerald exposed enormous bias in Blackwood who failed to mention in his written testimony that these examinations are based on that that Assange had exhibited this tendency towards self-harm and that's the main reason he went to the ward or one of the reasons he admitted yes there were many factors and that was probably one of them but why didn't you put it in your report Mr. Blackwood another thing Blackwood said was the he he expanded a little bit on the reason why they sent him there because of the film that the video that was leaked out caused reputational damage to prison officials otherwise they were ticked off that that prison it was able to make a video and leak it from their high security Belmarsh prison that shows they're not doing a very good job you know government and others who look at the performance of prison governor and officials would see that that's not a very good thing if you're running a high security prison to allow a video to get out so they were they were embarrassed and they took it out on Assange basically it was reputational this was one of the reasons but the other one was and it was noted there that he had tendency towards self-harm over several days and the second time that Fitzgerald was able to get Blackwood exposed is when the discussion began about what conditions Assange would face if he were to be extradited to the US and where he would be held and he would initially be held everyone seems to agree in Alexandria attention center it's next to the courthouse in Alexandria I actually live in Alexandria so I been that by that courthouse I've been in that courthouse so I know the area that's what Chelsea Manning was held this is where Assange would be held and Fitzgerald read out as told Blackwood that Assange would be confined to a small cell with no exercise or fresh air limited communication with his lawyers no contact with prisoners and he asked Blackwood assuming this is correct that this will be the conditions would those conditions be damaging with Julian Assange's psychiatric history and Blackwood admitted yes they may have an impact on his depressive disorder after Fitzgerald described the special administrative measures which are this even enhanced solitary confinement where even the lawyers are not able to meet in the same room with their client but to a gate like a confessional box they could only speak that way to their to their clients not it not physically in the same room he asked Blackwood if given these SAMs these special measures would it be damaging under those conditions to send somebody like Assange and his response Blackwood whether there's a range of approaches on the SAMs and the one that Fitzgerald was describing is the most pessimistic he said but if that pertained yes they had a potential to impact his mood state but I maintain his mood state is manageable so basically Blackwood is saying even if he sent under the most pessimistic scenario of the detention in Alexandria of the special administrative measures that even then he maintains that his mood state is manageable and Fitzgerald interjected and said even in these conditions he couldn't believe that he would say that and the response from Blackwood was and this is where he was exposed he drew on US Attorney Gordon Cromberg's testimony his affidavit and again Cromberg is not making himself available to the court to be cross-examined he wrote this 36 page affidavit this is the government's position the government is presenting it as the absolute truth and this government witness also seemed to accept it as absolute truth because he says he drew on Cromberg who wrote that in Virginia there's broad equivalency with Britain British prison conditions and that he wrote Cromberg did that there is no solitary confinement in the Alexandria detention center now this brought absolute incredulity to Fitzgerald the defense attorney cross-examining him he's asking him did you simply rely only on Cromberg why are you saying there's no solitary confinement in the ADC and Blackwood said because i'm drawing on Cromberg so Fitzgerald says Cromberg says there's no solitary in the ADC and you just put it in your report like that this is what i'm drawing on Blackwood said Fitzgerald don't you think that the statement of Cromberg a government official which we say is incorrect is open to question you're only taking this from Cromberg shouldn't you have seen what the defense has to say on this and again he said he relied on Blackwood did on Cromberg and the academic literature and what happens in U.S. prisons there may be stuff that isn't covered there but there's broad equivalency so he never put into his report the not only the defense's position on this but Maureen Baird as uh wrote a report about the conditions in Alexandria detention center and she's an expert on that and she said there's solitary confinement there so just because Cromberg said there isn't solitary confinement was enough for Blackwood who later admitted he'd never been in a federal prison or any federal facility in the USA at all only in a Connecticut state prison and in a jail in Newport Rhode Island he's never even visited a federal prison he's nowhere near an expert on that he's relying only on the academic literature and Cromberg to say what the conditions would be this is all significant of course again the judge has to decide whether Assange is going to be sent to something worse than he would have in a great in a British prison she has to decide whether he's mental health is robust enough to withstand these American prison conditions that are being described by the defense and then there was one more kind of bombshell situation that came up when uh Fitzgerald asked Blackwood why did he put in his report that it would not be unjust to send Assange to the United States he as Fitzgerald strongly pointed out that that is only up to the judge to decide not you and he meekly said yes yes of course it's only up to the judge so why and again Fitzgerald so why are you entering something in your report that's up to the judge and he said it's up to the judge twice that was a embarrassing moment for Blackwood where he went much further than he had to to put in what he thought the conclusion of this entire process should be he's only supposed to state the facts of his mental health and the prison conditions whether he thought that they were equivalent to Britain that's basically what he was from my understanding narrowed down to but instead he actually made a decision like saying this is what I would decide if I were to judge but of course he isn't the judge now the last part of the testimony was something because you see the camera swung over to Assange sitting with his surgical mask in this glass box and then we heard a moving testimony from Sandra Crosby she's an American doctor general practitioner in Massachusetts who three times visited Assange in the Embassy of Ecuador and then twice in Belmont she was had five visits with him and she described his physical ailments and again we are going to limit what we're saying here because of the request of the Assange and his family members so we did learn a lot more about his physical conditions that were worse than anything we've thought she we knew about his tooth she spoke that he had an abscess tooth an infection and she spoke at length about that and how worrying she was and she said at one point she couldn't convince him to leave the embassy to get it treated because she he realized what happened to him because of the consequences and on the cross examination by Lewis of Crosby he he he latched on something she said where he was confined to the embassy and this is the long one of the long standing anti-assange memes here that he could leave anytime he wanted to and this is basically what Lewis was saying he could have left he's not he wasn't imprisoned in the embassy and she had an interesting response she's that's complicated that question and she felt he saw this as if someone was coming after him with an axe or a knife or a gun and then he locked himself in a room to be safe that was a very very good analogy that clearly explained I think why Assange could not step outside because the British government had said clearly that the British police I think it was the the foreign secretary I think said that the British police were waiting with welcoming arms if he steps out of the embassy to to arrest him that was clear so the idea that he could leave anytime he wanted to but out being arrested and extradited to the United States which they poo poo that was his fear now we know obviously it's true because we're in the second week the end of the second week of this extradition hearing to the United States Crosby was challenged because she's not a psychiatrist but in she has testified about psychological matters she's a general practitioner but so she's put mostly about his physical condition and if anyone in that room was not moved by it then they're the kind of person who is in a government that has been dropping numerous bombs on nations since the end of second world war wiping out millions basically of innocent civilians and their quest for world domination this is what came across my mind so if they can do that this government it's child's play for them to destroy this one man who tried to expose all of that this is joe lorry reporting to cn live before i go i well i ask you again to go to patreon.com backslash cn live to help keep these broadcasts on the air bye bye