Assange should go free-UN panel

UK to contest decision in favor of WikiLeaks founder; Sweden says'does not agree'

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be allowed to go free from the Ecuadorian embassy in London and be awarded compensation for what amounts to a three-and a-half-year arbitrary detention, a UN panel ruled on Friday.

Assange, a computer hacker who enraged the United States by publishing hundreds of thousands of secret US diplomatic cables, has been holed up in the embassy since June 2012 to avoid a rape investigation in Sweden.