You can believe that Assange had sex with someone without a condom, in violation of their expressed wishes, without believing that 1. sufficient evidence exists for a case to be brought 2. that he is safer in Sweden from onward extradition to the US for what arguably amounts to political persecution.
If this was how criminal law worked, Hans Reiser would be working on another filesystem from his house in Oakland right now. Nobody on the Internet believed the case brought against him either.
You cannot reasonably believe that he is less safe in Sweden than the UK. That's an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence. The list of reasons why his safety changes not- at- all after going to Sweden is compelling and widely documented. Occam's razor strongly indicates that Assange isn't going to Sweden because he simply doesn't want to face criminal proceedings.
Some people may believe he is innocent but what I said is that there may not be enough evidence to bring a case, as I imagine is common in sexual molestation cases, and this is a good explanation for why he has not been questioned.
Sweden is less safe than the UK primarily because it is a far smaller country that is more susceptible to American influence, because there is less support for Assange there than the UK (and therefore it would politically easier to extradite him) and because the UK has a history of resisting extradition (e.g. McKinnon) while the best example of Sweden's willingness to comply were the rendition cases and that Sweden has complied with essentially every extradition request in the previous few years.
The arguments for why he would be as safe in Sweden are essentially that extradition requests are subject to judicial review in Sweden. I would expect the UK's judicial's system to be more refined that Sweden's but putting that aside we would expect the Swedish judiciary to be less reliable for the reasons of outside influence given above. The idea that any judiciary is immune from political pressure or not influenced by current political views is naive. In addition the judiciary can be overridden by the executive branch. The argument for why they wouldn't abuse that power is that the Swedish executive would be violating international law. However this is not an effective deterrent because Assange likely cannot afford to pay for such legal proceedings, the extradition would probably occur before the legal challenge anyway (after which it is game over anyway), and the penalty for violating international law is negligible when the US/UK are on your side. Even when Sweden lost in the rendition cases they only had to pay a fine. The US would gladly pay several millions of dollars to get custody of Assange. Policing the embassy alone is costing the UK something like a million dollars a day.
Finally one must consider that thinking Sweden is comparably safe to the UK and being wrong is almost certainly many many years in US prison if not life.
Under Sweden's laws, he can't be questioned until he appears in person to be charged. They didn't make that law up to screw Assange; they did it because it's part of how Sweden protects the rights of the accused.
Basically every assertion you made in this comment is wrong:
* The UK is a closer ally of the US's than Sweden.
* The UK has cooperated more with the US in "renditioning" subjects than Sweden, which stopped cooperation in 2006.
* The UK is governed by a coalition led by political conservatives, and Sweden by liberals.
* The UK's extradition system is substantially the same as that of Sweden, and both inherit the protections of the ECHR.
* The judiciary of Sweden is exactly as accountable to local politics as that of the UK.
* By treaty, Sweden is required to obtain the consent of the UK to further extradite Assange.
Rendition is such a red herring anyway. Thanks to his notoriety and paranoia, and the paranoia of his followers, Assange is probably the one person on earth who's the least likely to be extrajudicially kidnapped. The whole point of rendition is that it's a covert operation. That, and the fact that you don't really need to go through any kind of channels for it--if the US really wanted to rendition Assange, they could just grab him off the streets, and if anything, putting him in British or Swedish custody would only interfere with that.
> Under Sweden's laws, he can't be questioned until he appears in person to be charged.
I know the prosecutor said this initially but then backtracked. I don't think it is true (Happy to be shown to be wrong though). Swedish prosecutors questioned someone else in Serbia in the same time frame.
I never said Sweden and US were closer allies I said that Sweden was easier for the US to influence since it was smaller. Sweden doesn't have as much influence in the world, benefits more from each incoming dollar, doesn't have as much bargaining power, doesn't have as much that the US wants, etc. Then when Sweden became involved with Assange the US secretary of state made the first bilateral visit in 36 years. The ability for the US to influence Sweden matters more than whether the leadership is conservative or liberal or that their extradition procedures are similar or that the judiciary is as much accountable (notwithstanding the fact that they are accountable to different groups of people with polar opposite views on the accused)
Finally, my understanding is that the consent of the UK for onward extradition is a rubber stamp from the secretary of state.
