WikiLeaks and Julian Assange have selected Spanish judge and lawyer Baltasar Garzón to head their new legal team.

In June 2012, Assange lost his appeal in the United Kingdom to avoid being extradited to Sweden. There, he will likely face charges of sexual misconduct (an accusation that he has staunchly denied). The WikiLeaks founder also maintains his fear of being extradited to the United States, although he has not been charged with a crime there either.

Garzón is a well-known judge who earned a reputation as a fierce jurist when he issued an international arrest warrant for General Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator, in 1998. More recently, he became noted in international legal circles for considering international criminal charges against the “Bush Six,” a six-man legal team from the Bush Administration who drafted legal memos that effectively authorized torture.

In February 2012, the Spanish Supreme Court found Garzón guilty of illegally ordering wiretaps in Spanish jails to record conversations between inmates and their attorneys in a corruption case. He was barred from serving in the legal profession in Spain for 11 years and was ordered to pay €2,500 ($3,000). That decision has remained controversial in Spain, as some view it as a domestic politicization of the court.

In a statement published in a WikiLeaks statement posted on Twitter and sent by e-mail to reporters on Tuesday, Assange and Garzón met “recently” at the Ecuadorian embassy, where Assange has been staying for over a month.

“The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the new legal strategy which will defend both WikiLeaks and Julian Assange from the existing abuse of process; expose the arbitrary, extrajudicial actions by the international financial system which target Julian Assange and WikiLeaks specifically,” the organization wrote.

In Quito, the Ecuadorian capital, Ricardo Patino, the country’s foreign minister, told reporters on Tuesday that the country welcomed Assange’s alliance with Garzón. That's because, he says, Ecuador has a “very good relationship” with the jurist. Garzón is part of an international panel to examine “judicial overhaul” in the Latin American state.