Sweden has halted its rape investigation into WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for a second time, leaving the Australian facing an extradition hearing from the US.

Swedish prosecutors said on Tuesday they would discontinue their preliminary investigation after concluding that the evidence had become weaker due to the passage of time since the alleged rape took place in August 2010.

Sweden stopped its initial investigation in 2017 due to prosecutors’ claims that they were unable to pursue the investigation while Mr Assange was holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy in London, where he took refuge in 2012. It was restarted in May this year after the WikiLeaks founder was forcibly removed from the embassy and subsequently jailed in the UK for skipping bail.