During a telephone call from his UK prison on Christmas Eve, Julian Assange told his friend, British journalist Vaughan Smith, he “little by little died,” said Smith, that Wikileaks’s founder sounded like a “male shell he once was.”

RT reports: On Christmas holidays Assange was allowed to make a single call from the Belmarsh maximum-security prison in Southeast London, in the hope of a world reminder beyond its drab walls of stain and concrete.

“I just think he wanted to escape for a few minutes” and revive “happy memories,” Smith told RT that Assange had stayed home in 2010. The short conversation was far from positive, but Assange’s worsening health was becoming increasingly apparent during the call.

He said to me,’ I’m dying here painfully.’ “His conversation was sluggish. He spoke slowly, “continued the journalist. “When he speaks, Julian’s very articulate, a very clear person. While Assange did not say so clearly during the call, he said he thought the anti-secrecy protester was sedating. “It seemed very obvious that he is,” he said. And other visitors to Assange shared the same opinion.

Smith is not the first to raise the question, but the British authorities have refused to tell Assange whether psychotropic medications have been administered in prison and only say they are not “mistreating him.” But since he is “lonely treated for 23 hours a day,” when he is being refused the demands of many patients about his physical condition, Smith said he has a difficult time with the authorities.

“Julian was very nice at Christmas in 2010,” the journalist said, “but last week the man with whom he spoke on the phone sounded different. “I just don’t understand… why first of all he’s in Belmarsh Prison. He’s an inmate on remand. Belmarsh is the category A jail–the highest level in the British criminal system–reserved for “particularly disruptive” convicts and those likely to try and escape, which is usually ideal for assassins and terrorists. Although Assange does not meet any of those requirements and was originally imprisoned for a minor offense of the bail, he was nevertheless thrown into Belmarsh, treating him as a vicious, hardened criminal. He now faces extradition proceedings to the US.

The reason may be as simple as vengeance on someone who dared to tell the truth to the government, he claims, and set an example for everyone who would follow Assange’s leadership in the battle against state and corporate secrecy.

“It is clear that Julian’s events have a great deal more to do with revenge and set an example to dissuade other people from holding American power to account,” he said.

Assange] had a discussion, a debate about what accountability in the digital age would look like… The debate has quashed it never really happened, but it has been victimised…

Smith also said it would be necessary to convince the British Government to respond to a litany of questions about Assange, his treatment in prison and his health and to promote an “independent assessment” of the situation.

Assange will eventually receive a fair trial, restricted in a way or another since taking refuge at the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2012 and now denying his ability to defend himself in the Court.

“We really need to ask more questions about this whole issue. It has to be much more transparent… Julian has been violating his rights for almost a decade, “Smith said. “It’s totally disgusting. This is daunting. He’s better deserving.