British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond dismissed the panel on Friday, saying it comprised "laypeople and not lawyers," and told Assange publicly he should end four years of self-imposed confinement and "face justice in Sweden."

In 2010, Sweden issued a pan-European warrant to have Assange, a computer programmer and hacker, arrested over a rape allegation.

Assange sought asylum in a small office in the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012, maintaining that if he was handed over to Sweden he could then be extradited to the United States to face trial over Wikileak`s publication of classified documents.

"He can come out any time he chooses," Hammond said, referring to the UN panel`s finding.

"This is frankly a ridiculous finding by the working group and we reject it," he said.

Britain`s Foreign Office accused the UN panel of ignoring the facts and "well-recognized protections of the British legal system, adding that Britain had a legal obligation to sent Assange to Sweden for questioning.

Panel `interfering,` says Sweden

Sweden`s foreign ministry, in a letter to the UN panel released Friday, said Stockholm "does not agree with the assessment made by the majority of the Working Group."

Sweden said the panel did not have the right to "interfere in an ongoing case handled by a Swedish public authority."

"Mr Assange is free to leave the embassy at any point and Swedish authorities have no control over his decision to stay at the embassy," the ministry said.

Vindication, says Assange

Assange`s lawyer in Stockholm, Thomas Olsson, said Swedish prosecutors should show that they respect the UN report.

"If Sweden expects other countries to abide by UN recommendations, then they must also respect those decisions," Olsson said.

Assange told French public radio Friday that the UN ruling in his favor was a "vindication for what I`ve been saying over the past five years."

"I`m confident in my argument," he added.

Late on Thursday, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said he expected the UN panel`s decision to show that "we were right, after so many years."

One dissenter, one abstainee

From Geneva, UN human rights official Christophe Peschoux said the panel had made a 3-to-1 decision in Assange`s favor.

The dissenting opinion had come from a Ukrainian member of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Vladimir Tochilovsky.

An Australian member of the five-person panel had excused herself from the proceedings on the grounds that she shared the same nationality as Assange.

Probe `ongoing,` says Sweden

The Swedish Prosecution Authority said the UN panel`s call that Assange be allowed to go free and be compensated "has no formal impact on the ongoing investigation, according to Swedish law."

Under Sweden`s statute of limitations, its case against Assange does not expire until 2020.

Wikileaks, founded as an anti-secrecy group in 2006, subsequently infuriated US authorities by releasing 500,000 military files on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and 250,000 diplomatic cables.

Its main informant, US soldier Chelsea Manning, was subsequently sentenced to 35 years in prison for breaches of US espionage law.

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