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The organisation said they will be holding a press briefing at 11am BST today to give further details. Mr Assange has been inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for nearly seven years to avoid extradition to Sweden and the US. The email said: “WikiLeaks will be holding a press briefing about a new, wholly unexpected, criminal case involving Julian Assange escalating current tensions."

Wikileaks said attendees should expect an audiovisual presentation and a question and answer session. Those in attendance will include WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson, barrister Jenifer Robinson and Fidel Narvaez, a former consul of Ecuador to London. Last week, WikiLeaks announced that Mr Assange was due to be expelled from the embassy “within hours to days” according to a “high-level source. However, the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry later denied the reports, calling it “false news”.

Julian Assange in new criminal case according to WikiLeaks

Last week, WikiLeaks said Mr Assange was going to be expelled from the embassy

WikiLeaks tweeted on Thursday night: “A high-level source within the Ecuadorian state has told WikiLeaks that Julian Assange will be expelled within 'hours to days' using the INA papers offshore scandal as a pretext and that it already has an agreement with the UK for his arrest.” The fugitive programmer has been in the embassy since 2012 after seeking asylum there as Swedish police wanted to question him over allegations of sexual assault and rape. Swedish prosecutors dropped the arrest warrant and rape investigation in May 2017, but British police said Mr Assange would still be arrested if he tries to leave the embassy. This is due to a British warrant that was issued after he failed to surrender for his extradition.

Mr Assange believes he will be extradited to the US if he leaves the embassy