THE US is wrong to charge Julian Assange for publishing unredacted classified documents because they had already appeared online beforehand, the extradition hearing for the Wikileaks founder heard today.

Computer scientist Professor Christian Grothoff said that Wikileaks was not the first to release 251,000 diplomatic cables when they appeared on its website on September 2 2011.

Mr Assange, 49, is fighting extradition to the US, where he faces an 18-count indictment alleging a plot to hack computers and conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information.