WikiLeaks' Julian Assange refuses US extradition request, asks for Australia's protection

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has again appealed for Australian diplomatic protections as he began his legal battle against US extradition.

The Australian has decided to formally contest a US extradition request over a charge of conspiring to commit computer intrusion in with former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning between January and May in 2010.

The 47-year-old told Judge Michael Snow in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London on Thursday that he would contest the American application.

"I do not wish to surrender myself to extradition for doing journalism that has won many, many awards and protected many people," Assange said via videolink from HM Belmarsh prison.

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Outside court his barrister Jennifer Robinson made a fresh appeal for the Australian government to intervene in the case.

"What we would like to see is action at the higher political levels and diplomatic protection being exercised over Julian Assange," Robinson told AAP.

"We have been asking the Australian government since 2010 to seek assurances to protect him from US extradition, the very matter that he's facing right now and we would like the Australian government to be raising his case."

US government legal representatives Ben Brandon earlier told the court that Assange and Manning had a made clandestine deal to try to hack the passwords of Pentagon computers to access classified information.

"The charge relates to one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States," he said.

"Evidence obtained in the course of the investigation shows Ms Manning and Mr Assange unlawfully conspired to effectuate this disclosure," he added.

Robinson said afterwards that there was no suggestion her client had ever hacked US military computers.

She said the case boiled down to Assange being alleged to have had communications with his source Manning, encouraged her to provide more information and conversed with her about protecting her identity.

"Journalists do this all the time, that's why this indictment and the extradition request is such a concern for free speech groups here [the UK] and in the US, and it's why Julian is committed to defending himself and resisting extradition in this case," Robinson told AAP.

Assange was remanded in custody until another procedural hearing in the same court on May 30.

The extradition case is set to begin on June 12, with Brandon wanting an hour for that day.

Assange had previously said he feared being sent to the US to face charges related to WikiLeaks' publication of classified US military documents.

Authorities in the US have charged him with conspiring to break into a Pentagon computer system. The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

He is accused of scheming with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to break a password for a classified government computer.

Manning served several years in prison for leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks. She was jailed again in March after refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said Wednesday that the extradition battle was "a question of life and death" for Assange.