Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has launched a new bid for freedom, asking a court to cancel the arrest warrant that awaits him should he step out of the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

With the end of the Swedish investigation into rape claims against Assange, the warrant has “lost its purpose and its function”, Assange’s lawyer Mark Summers QC told chief magistrate Emma Arbuthnot at the Westminster Magistrates Court on Friday.

And he argued no new warrant should be issued on public interest grounds because Assange’s health was in “serious peril”.

Julian Assange speaks from a balcony at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Credit:Bloomberg

“Mr Assange has suffered very significant punishment for his actions,” his lawyers said in written submissions to the court. “He has spent five and a half years in conditions… akin to imprisonment, without access to adequate medical care or sunlight, in circumstances where his physical and psychological health have deteriorated and are in serious peril.”