Assange marks two years in London embassy

Julian Assange.

Today marks the second anniversary of Assange entering the diplomatic mission to seek political asylum, which he was granted in mid-August 2012.

WikiLeaks legal adviser Jen Robinson used the anniversary to announce a new bid to get Sweden to drop its four-year investigation into allegations of sexual assault against Assange.

Next Tuesday lawyers in Stockholm will file a challenge to a Swedish detention order "on the basis that new information has been received about the case", Ms Robinson told reporters during a phone conference.

She noted that since the UK courts agreed to extradite Assange the British law had changed "to prevent people being extradited without charge".

Assange fears if he goes to Sweden he'll be extradited to the United States and charged over WikiLeaks' release of classified documents.

The 42-year-old says even if the Swedish warrant was dismissed he still risks being extradited from Britain to the US.

"However, the removal of the Swedish matter will prevent what has been an extremely distracting political attack, which has been to try and draw attention away from what is the largest ever criminal investigation by the (US) Department of Justice into a publisher, and into me, personally," Assange said on Wednesday.

Removing Sweden from the equation would make it easier to find out if the British government supported his extradition to the US, the former computer hacker said.

This time last year Assange launched a blistering attack on the Gillard government in Australia saying it "bent over more than any other country in the world" to appease the US.

Here is the original post:
Assange marks two years in London embassy