US fugitive Nicholas Rossi has no medical need for wheelchair, prison doctor tells court
dailyrecord.co.ukUS fugitive Nicholas Rossi has no medical need for using a wheelchair, his prison doctor told a court.Dr Barbara Mundweil said Rossi claims to be “paralysed”, but there had been no diagnosis of any condition preventing him from walking.The GP said she’d viewed CCTV from Edinburgh’s Saughton Prison, where she cares for inmates including Rossi, which appeared to show him kicking a door which allegedly struck a prison officer.Dr Mundweil, 58, said Rossi, who speaks in a laboured and breathless fashion on the witness stand, has the oxygen levels of a “healthy person”.She was giving her evidence on the third day of Rossi’s extradition hearing at the city’s sheriff court on Wednesday.Rossi was arrested at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in December 2021 while receiving treatment for Covid-19.The 35-year-old, who is fighting a bid to return him to his US homeland to face charges including rape, continues to claim he’s an Irishman called Arthur Knight.Dr Mundweil, who has cared for Rossi since she started work at the jail last September, said he’d been “severely ill with covid” at the time of his arrest.She added: “He is a lot better.
He says he can’t walk, but I’m not too sure about that because I was not around when that happened.”Advocate depute Alan Cameron asked the witness if it’s “clear to you what the medical reason is for his use of a wheelchair”.Dr Mundweil replied: “No.”She added she’d made inquiries to determine why Rossi needed a wheelchair.Asked by Mr Cameron if she’d found an explanation, Dr Mundweil replied: “No.”Dr Mundweil said she’d viewed CCTV last year of an incident when a door swung open and hit a prison officer in the face after Rossi allegedly struck it.She said: “I suspected the door was
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