WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's three-and-a-half-year stay in the Ecuadorian embassy in London amounts to “unlawful detention”, a United Nations panel examining his appeal will rule on Friday, the BBC reported.

Mr. Assange, a former computer hacker who has been holed up in the embassy since June 2012, told the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that he was a political refugee whose rights had been infringed by being unable to take up asylum in Ecuador.

Reuters was unable immediately to confirm the BBC report and the U.N. said the panel's opinion, which is not legally binding, was due to be published on Friday. The British police said Mr. Assange would face arrest if he leaves the embassy.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman said on Thursday that if Mr. Assange leaves the Ecuadorian embassy in London he will be arrested.

The spokesman said that any decision by a United Nations panel that is examining Mr. Assange's appeal would not be legally binding and that an arrest warrant for Assange would be put into effect if he left the embassy.

The Australian, who jumped bail to take refuge in the embassy, is wanted in Sweden for questioning over allegations of rape in 2010, which he denies.

“Should the U.N. announce tomorrow that I have lost my case against the United Kingdom and Sweden, I shall exit the embassy at noon on Friday to accept arrest by British police as there is no meaningful prospect of further appeal,” Mr. Assange said in a statement posted on the Wikileaks Twitter account.

“However, should I prevail and the state parties be found to have acted unlawfully, I expect the immediate return of my passport and the termination of further attempts to arrest me.”

A decision in his favour would mark the latest twist in a tumultuous journey for Mr. Assange since he incensed the United States and its allies by using his WikiLeaks website to leak hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic and military cables in 2010, disclosures that often embarrassed Washington.

Mr. Assange, 44, fears Sweden will extradite him to the United States, where he could be put on trial over WikiLeaks' publication of the classified military and diplomatic documents, one of the largest information leaks in U.S. history.

He made international headlines in early 2010 when WikiLeaks published classified U.S. military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff.

Later that year, the group released over 90,000 secret documents detailing the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan, followed by almost 400,000 internal U.S. military reports detailing operations in Iraq.

Those disclosures were followed by the release of more than 250,000 classified cables from U.S. embassies. It would go on to add almost three million more diplomatic cables dating back to 1973.

In his submission to the U.N. working group, a body of outside experts, Mr. Assange argued that his time in the embassy constituted arbitrary detention.

Mr. Assange says he is the victim of a witch hunt directed by the United States and that his fate is a test case for freedom of expression.

He said that he had been deprived of his fundamental liberties, including lack of access to sunlight or fresh air, adequate medical facilities, as well as legal and procedural insecurity.

Per Samuelson, one of Mr. Assange's Swedish lawyers, said if the U.N. panel judged Mr. Assange's time in the embassy to be custody, he should be released immediately.

“It is a very important body that would be then saying that Sweden's actions are inconsistent with the European Convention on Human Rights. And it is international common practice to follow those decisions,” Mr. Samuelson told Reuters.

Since Mr. Assange's confinement, WikiLeaks has continued to publish documents on topics such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, one of the world's biggest multinational trade deals, which was signed by 12 member nations on Thursday in New Zealand.

WikiLeaks began posting what it claims are the contents of CIA Director John Brennan’s private email account on Wednesday, days after a teenager claimed to have hacked into his account.

The six initial emails posted by the anti-secrecy organization date from 2007 and 2008, and include personal information as well as draft versions of advice and policy positions. 

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Additional documents will be posted “over the coming days,” WikiLeaks said, while claiming that Brennan used the account “occasionally for several intelligence related projects.” In a statement, CIA spokesman Dean Boyd did not dispute the authenticity of the leaked emails. “The hacking of the Brennan family account is a crime and the Brennan family is the victim,” Boyd said.

 “The private electronic holdings of the Brennan family were plundered with malicious intent and are now being distributed across the web. This attack is something that could happen to anyone and should be condemned, not promoted. “There is no indication that any the documents released thus far are classified,” Boyd added. “In fact, they appear to be documents that a private citizen with national security interests and expertise would be expected to possess.” 

Among the released documents is a draft version of Brennan’s security clearance questionnaire, which contains detailed information about his life and biography, including his passport number, home telephone number and a list of home addresses dating back to his childhood home in 1963. The document also contains Brennan’s wife’s Social Security number as well as birthdates, names and other information about close family members. The form, known as an SF86, is a common questionnaire for performing background checks of national security officials and contains information that could be personally compromising. The draft of a 2007 memo also contained in Brennan’s emails contains advice for the next president — who would be President Obama — about what to do with Iran. “Whoever takes up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in January 2009 will need to ‘hit the ground running’ on Iran,” Brennan said in the draft memo. Talks between the U.S. and Iran “should not have a narrow focus,” Brennan added, given that its support for terrorism, nuclear ambitions and regional goals “are inextricably intertwined.” 

The note is particularly striking given the Obama administration’s recent nuclear deal with Iran, which it has repeatedly said is a narrow agreement unrelated to Iran’s other activities. The memo also called for the White House to appoint an envoy to Iran. As possible candidates for the post, Brennan suggested former Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Madeline Albright, ex-Vice President Al Gore and former National Security Advisors Tony Lake and Brent Scowcroft. Another 2007 memo outlines how U.S. intelligence agencies need to “evolve” from their “Cold War roots.” Among other points, it calls for the head of the CIA and the director of national intelligence to be appointed for 10-year terms, which has not happened. A 2008 fax, meanwhile, outlines a legal dispute between the CIA and a defense contracting firm. 

Also contained in the cache of leaked documents are a letter from former Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) about brutal CIA interrogation methods often considered to be torture and the text of a 2008 bill to limit the interrogation program. The announcement follows the government’s admission that it was investigating reports that a high schooler had broken into Brennan’s personal AOL email account along with the Comcast account of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. The hacker and their associates claim to have broken into Brennan’s account by posing as a Verizon worker and getting the company to reveal his personal information, according to Wired. Brennan’s account was broken into on Oct. 12, the hacker allegedly said.

 According to reports, none of the documents obtained in the apparent hack contain classified information. FBI Director James Comey declined to answer reporters’ questions about the incident on Tuesday. CIA representatives did not respond to an inquiry about the leaked documents.