ACTIVISTS have welcomed the call by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Thursday for the United States and Britain to end their legal pursuit of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

This comes ahead of what is likely to be the final appeal by Mr Assange against his extradition to the US at a High Court hearing next Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Australian Prime Minister was speaking in parliament after backing a motion on Wednesday calling for the case against Mr Assange, an Australian citizen, to be dropped. 

Mr Albanese said the country as a whole shared the view that “enough is enough.”

He said it was time for an end to the prosecution so that Mr Assange could return to his family in Australia.

“This thing cannot just go on and on and on indefinitely,” he said.

Mr Albanese said that the Australian government had a duty to lobby for its citizens and that the issue had been raised “at the highest levels” in both Britain and the US.

Welcoming the comments, John Rees, organiser of the  protest outside the British High Court, said: “The entire Australian political spectrum, all its main political parties, are now urgently calling for the release of Julian Assange. 

“British judges should pay attention and not simply act as transmission belts for the US government and its attempt to stifle the free press.”

Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn, a longtime supporter of Mr Assange, said he was “pleased that Australia has finally joined Mexico and other governments that have shown their support for Julian Assange.”

He added that Mr Assange’s “only crime has been to tell the truth about Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and corporate greed.”

Mr Assange has spent five years in London’s high security Belmarsh Prison, battling extradition to the US on charges of releasing confidential military records and diplomatic cables in 2010 that Washington claims put lives in danger.