Obviously he has every right to be paranoid about the US trying to extradite him but you have to wonder how far he's willing to go on this. I think the Assange story long ago eclipsed the Wikileaks story (look how little attention Bradley Manning gets) and if he was prosecuted and convicted of rape in Sweden and had to do jail time there, I think the story would only be remembered for Assange. No need for a very messy public trial after extradition, no need for the miles of bad press it would generate.