Assange suffering psychological torture, U.N. expert says

GENEVA — A U.N. expert on torture sharply rebuked Britain, Sweden and the United States on Friday for what he called a concerted campaign of persecution and abuse against the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and said he should not be extradited into U.S. hands.

The U.N. special rapporteur on torture and ill treatment, Nils Melzer, who is also an international law professor, said the evidence was “overwhelming and clear” that Assange had been deliberately exposed for several years “to progressively severe forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the cumulative effects of which can only be described as psychological torture.”

Melzer said this included systematic abuse of judicial powers; arbitrary confinement in Ecuador’s London Embassy, where he had sought asylum and was eventually ousted in April and arrested by British police; harassment and surveillance inside the embassy; and a “relentless and unrestrained campaign of public mobbing, intimidation and defamation” outside it, including threatening statements by senior politicians and judicial officials.

Melzer issued his statement three weeks after visiting Assange at Britain’s high-security Belmarsh prison, accompanied by two medical experts.

Melzer said the examination of Assange, carried out in early May, showed that “his capacity to focus and coordinate have been clearly affected” by his circumstances and by the extreme stress and chronic anxiety arising from them.

“He was extremely jumpy and stressed,” Melzer said in an interview. “It’s difficult to have a structured conversation with him.”

Assange, 47, had stayed in Ecuador’s Embassy in the British capital for seven years to avoid being extradited to the U.S. After the Ecuadoran government withdrew its protection and allowed the police to remove him, a...