The U.N. will make an announcement Friday over whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be released from what amounts to detention at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.

Assange submitted a complaint in 2014 against Sweden and the United Kingdom to the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention citing the unlawful and arbitrary nature of his detention.

If the U.N. group rules that his detention is unlawful, it will order his immediate release and that he receive compensation.

Assange gained international prominence in 2010 when WikiLeaks began publishing thousands of confidential U.S. diplomatic cables, some exposing potential war crimes, which angered the U.S. government.

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Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since June 2012 when he secured political asylum from Quito to block potential extradition to the United States where fellow whistleblower Chelsea Manning has faced what the U.N. said amounted to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Assange feared that if he was extradited to Sweden to face a rape allegation Sweden in turn would extradite him to the U.S. at Washington's behest.

He was previously accused of sexual assault and unlawful coercion in Sweden, but prosecutors in the nordic country dropped the two allegations in 2015, as the five-year statute of limitations had expired. However, the rape allegation would be dropped in 2020.

WATCH: United Nations to Announce Decision on Assange's Release