I think that's how it works in UK to, you get arrested first, then charged, if you flee then you're wanted "to face charges", ie the charges will be pressed once you're caught. Does any legal system have a full court case first, then apprehend only those proven guilty? Surely without essential witnesses that's not possible.

> that Sweden isn't actively pursuing the investigation.

Ecuador started arranging for him to leave the embassy at least five months ago.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/dec/06/ecuador-says-u...

Why didn't Sweden have an extradition request ready? They had at least five months to prepare one.

Because Ecuador warned the US they would be kicking him out of the embassy, but did not warn Sweden. I don't think that is in doubt at all.

The US does not need Sweden's involvement to extradite and try Assange. The rape charges are separate and irrelevant to the charges he faces in the US, and whether the UK would even grant his extradition to the US is not a sure thing.

These two cases are unrelated, and the only reason they have been conflated is a concerted effort on the part of Assange supporters to discredit the accusations of sexual misconduct by lumping them in with his WikiLeaks activities and make up a whole lot of guff about CIA plots rather than just accept that he should face the criminal justice procedure for some shitty personal behaviour on his part.

They are related because UK might not extradite him to the US, but they might to Sweden, who might extradite him to the US.

> Ecuador warned the US they would be kicking him out of the embassy, but did not warn Sweden

Ecuador hardly needed to notify Sweden. It was international news. The Guardian article from five months ago that I linked was just one of many. "No one in the Swedish government reads international news" is not a credible explanation.

I see two possible explanations:

1) Sweden doesn't place a high priority on prosecuting famous accused rapists who've escaped justice for years, or

2) Sweden doesn't consider Assange a famous accused rapist who's escaped justice for years.

I don't think either of your "possible explanations" are borne out by the evidence, but then there are a dozen other explanations that are both more plausible, and whose truth-potential is not dependent on whether they make sense to you personally.

If the tweets you link are to be believed, we don't have to guess. Apparently no one in the prosecutor's office reads the news.

I don't find that believable, but whatever.

I'm not sure why you place so much importance on this seemingly small detail that, as far as I can tell, doesn't really have a broader contextual impact. That being said, without knowing more about the situation, it's completely believable that the prosecutor's office would not initiate legal action based on rumours in the news, especially since there have been so many rumours and predictions around what the Ecuadorian embassy intends to do with Assange and when they intend to do it.

It really does look to me like you are grasping at straws, but maybe I've missed something.

Why would you assume I'm "grasping" for anything, or that I'm defending Assange? Questioning the official story is not equivalent to being a fan.

I just realize Assange is a high-value target for political and legal attacks (including false allegations), so I think people who unquestioningly believe what they hear about him from official sources are naive. Haven't we all seen enough to know that governments and the media don't always tell the truth?

And when Sweden cracked down on The Pirate Bay we saw that the Swedish government is not immune to pressure from Washington.

All I'm saying is: wait for conclusive proof before leaping to conclusions.

> Why didn't Sweden have an extradition request ready

From what I recall about the situation from past threads is that Sweden cannot send extradition requests in advance. Most criminal courts don't go out of their way to break the rules as that costs and they have to justify the budget.

Also why spend extra time and money on something when they could just wait until he was under British custody? Where is the urgency when normal procedures would suffice?

The Americans went out of their way because this is a political matter to them and their budget was approved.

Sweden _can_ send extradition requests; they're just for 'questioning', not 'arrest'. The bail he skipped out on was for a Swedish extradition request.

According to your [2], more than 2 weeks ago, Swedish lawyers started preparing their case to request his extradition. Have there been any updates?

No there's no updates.

These things normally takes quite some time.

As far as I've understood the EAW process is super fast, am I wrong?