Remember Julian Assange is in a high security prison without conviction awaiting extradition to the US where the conditions he will be incarcerated in will be even worse. He will be burried in the prison with no contact to his friends or family while being tried in the 'espionage court' where he is charged. The long-term threat of these conditions have amounted to psychological torture, resulting in a medical state that could end his life at any moment. Julian is literally hanging by a thread. His limited contact with his wife and 2 young children are literally his life line. He won't have that in US prison. This is a matter of life and death. Torturers torture to intimidate. In Julian's case it is to intimidate everyone else and in particular the press, so they won't do what he did and expose serious state criminality to the world. The purpose is to avoid accountability and avoid facing justice.