Details of a doctor’s assessment of the health of Julian Assange during his seven-year confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, UK, have emerged.

They show Mr Assange’s physical and mental health were severely affected by his self-sought asylum in the embassy, which finally came to an end on 11 April after Ecuadorian authorities withdrew his asylum status.

Three days earlier Dr Sondra Crosby, a US senior forensic consultant, who evaluated the WikiLeaks founder four times between October 2017 and February 2019, had written a letter to the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, saying the pain and suffering inflicted on Mr Assange was akin to torture.

In the letter, Dr Crosby said Mr Assange’s multiple medical conditions had become “predictably more complex and urgent” since January last year, when she had first called for his safe passage to receive medical care.