Lawyers for Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who on Thursday marks his second anniversary holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, are preparing to file a challenge to his detention order in Sweden in a move that could impact the state of legal limbo in which he is trapped.



Jennifer Robinson, Assange’s UK-based lawyer, told reporters that the legal challenge, which is due to be lodged with Swedish courts next Tuesday, was based on “new information gathered in Sweden”. She declined to give any further details until the filing had been made.

News of the challenge was the first indication in months of any possible way out of the legal deadlock in which Assange has fallen since he took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy on 19 June 2012. Since then, the embassy has been ringed with British police 24 hours a day, at a cost of more than £6m ($10m) to the taxpayer, as the UK government seeks to enforce an extradition order to send the WikiLeaks publisher to Sweden.

The Swedish detention order that Assange is now challenging was issued in November 2010. It requires the founder of the free information website to be arrested and extradited to Sweden to face questioning over the alleged sexual assault of two women in that country.

Assange and his legal advisers have always protested that were he to cooperate with the British and Swedish authorities, he would expose himself to an ongoing criminal investigation by the US Department of Justice. The DoJ is known to have opened a grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks’ publication of a vast tranche of secret official documents leaked by the US army private Chelsea Manning (Bradley Manning at the time).

In a telephone press conference on the eve of the second anniversary of his asylum in the embassy, Assange called on the US attorney general, Eric Holder, to put a stop to the investigation. “It is against the stated principles of the US and I believe the values supported by its people to have a four-year criminal investigation against a publisher. The on-going existence of that investigation produces a chilling effect not just to internet-based publishers but to all publishers,” he said.



WikiLeaks caused a global sensation in 2010 when it began publishing, in collaboration with international news organisations including the Guardian, hundreds of thousands of confidential US files including diplomatic cables, warlogs from Iraq and Afghanistan, and a video of a US apache helicopter attack in Baghdad. The US government convened a grand jury to investigate WikiLeaks’ role in the leak, although it has been reported that charges have not been filed.

Since his retreat into the Ecuadorian embassy, Assange has also played a key role in the fleeing of Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, from Hong Kong to Russia. WikiLeaks staffers last year helped Snowden evade arrest and secure temporary asylum in Moscow.

Assange declined to say whether he has been in personal contact with Snowden. He also declined to say whether WikiLeaks has had access to the mountain of secret documents from the NSA and its British counterpart, GCHQ, leaked by Snowden.

The WikiLeaks founder said that were next week’s challenge successful in lifting the Swedish detention order, he would still face “the larger problem of the US and its pending prosecution and perhaps extradition warrant” as well as any possible arrest by the UK government for his role in the Snowden affair.

But he said it would be an important first step as it would remove “an extremely distracting political attack which has been to try and draw attention away from the largest criminal investigation ever by the department of justice into a publisher and me personally”.

Despite attempts by Assange and his lawyers to focus attention on the US government’s investigation into WikiLeaks, he continues to face public criticism for his refusal to subject himself to questioning in Sweden on the sexual assault allegations. A reporter from the UK broadcaster Channel Four News accused Assange of failing to abide by his own principles of global transparency, to which he replied: “Oh here we go, Channel 4 News, this is the state of the media in the UK.”

Assange gave few details about how he was coping personally with living in cramped conditions in the embassy. He said he was watching the World Cup, supporting the Ecuador team, though television reception in the embassy was poor. “Perhaps it makes it more difficult for the bugs to transmit through the walls as well,” he quipped.

Asked how he was coping on the second anniversary, he deflected the question by saying there were other people in more difficult circumstances. He pointed to Manning who has been sentenced to 35 years in military custody for leaking the WikiLeaks material and is currently being held in Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.

Assange repeatedly referred to the soldier as “he” even though Chelsea Manning has legally changed her name and now requests that she is addressed as a woman.