Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to sue Ecuador for …

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange will launch legal action against the government of Ecuador, is has been announced.

The Australian has been living inside the country's embassy in London for more than six years.

WikiLeaks lawyer Baltasar Garzon has arrived in Ecuador to launch the case, which is set to be heard in a domestic court next week.

WikiLeaks said Ecuador had threatened to remove the protection Mr Assange has had since being granted political asylum, and added that his access to the outside world had been "summarily cut off."

In July, Ecuador's president Lenn Moreno said the whistleblower must leave the embassy eventually.

Earlier this week, he was handed a set of house rules including better looking after his cat and cleaning his bathroom.

WikiLeaks said the government of Ecuador refused a visit by Human Rights Watch general counsel Dinah PoKempner, who has likened Ecuador's isolation to "solitary confinement", and had not allowed several meetings with his lawyers.

A statement said: "Ecuador's measures against Julian Assange have been widely condemned by the human rights community."

Mr Assange's lawyers said they were also challenging the legality of the Ecuador government's "special protocol", revealed earlier this week, which makes his political asylum contingent on "censoring" his freedom of opinion, speech and association.

The protocol also requires journalists, his lawyers and anyone else seeking to see Julian Assange to disclose private or political details, such as their social media usernames, the serial numbers and codes of their phones and tablets, with Ecuador - which the protocol says the government may "share with other agencies".

The protocol claims the Embassy may seize the property of Mr Assange or his visitors and, without a warrant, hand it over to UK authorities, said the statement.

Despite the rape allegation against Assange being dropped, he has refused to leave the embassy while a separate UK arrest warrant for breaching his bail conditions remains in effect.

He lost a bid to have the bail offence thrown out earlier this year by a judge who described Assange as feeling "he is above the law".

The WikiLeaks founder says he fears extradition to the United States for questioning over the activities of the website if he leaves the building in leafy Knightsbridge.

WikiLeaks caused an international storm in 2010 when it published a series of leaks from US soldier Chelsea Manning.

The leaks enraged Washington and included thousands of secret US diplomatic cables that were highly critical of world leaders, including Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia's royal family.

He was seen as a cyber-hero by some for exposing government abuses of power and championing free speech, but to others he was viewed as a criminal who undermined the security of the West by exposing secrets.

He has recently been accused of speaking to Russian hackers trying to block the election of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 United States presidential election.

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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to sue Ecuador for ...