IT IS now or never to release Julian Assange, his wife told protesters outside Parliament at the weekend.

Stella Assange addressed a crowd of supporters alongside Labour MPs Apsana Begum and John McDonnell following a march through central London on Saturday.

Lifesize bronze sculptures of the Wikileaks founder and whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning were unveiled before the demonstrators.

Ms Assange said: “Julian could be a few weeks away from extradition. We don’t have a clear timeline, but this really is the end game.

“The stakes are very high: they’re high on all sides, not just for Julian’s life and his freedom, but all the press freedoms and the freedom of speech rights that go with him.

“There are lots of people around the world — presidents, prime ministers of Australia, of Brazil, of Mexico, and also European institutions — who are speaking out and saying that Julian should be released.

“So the general consensus from the human rights groups, from the press freedom groups, is that Julian should be released, but that the case has to be dropped.”

The Wikileaks founder has been held in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison for more than four years while fighting extradition to the United States, and potential life imprisonment there, after losing his bid to appeal against a judge’s ruling earlier this month.

The US government wants to put him on trial on espionage charges linked to the publication of hundreds of thousands of documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

The Italian artist Davide Dormino behind the sculptural work, titled Anything To Say? said “I feel I have a duty to defend freedom of speech and the right to know.”