Yes. There is nobody in Sweden with the power to make such an advance promise. It's simply impossible, by law. This is generally a good thing.

The real question in all of this is why does Sweden have an extradition treaty with a country infamous the world over for torture of detainees?

Well, you could ask roughly half of the world's sovereign states the same question.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_extradition_...

I would be happy to. "Because everybody else is doing it", is not exactly the most convincing of arguments.

treaties work in both directions

Hardly a justification for cooperating with torturers, more of an excuse.

Will you kindly stop referring to the United States as a whole as "torturers"? Not everyone here agrees with our government's use of torture and there is a continuing debate going on here on its usefulness and the need to prevent further abuses.

I know nothing about Swedish law but, as an EU member and ECHR [1] signatory, Sweden cannot extradite a person to the US (or any other country) if a possible punishment that they could receive would deprive that person of their rights under the convention. In practice, this applies to judicial execution, detention without trial, or detention without the possibility of release.

It may be that the US could give undertakings about excluding punishments (such as death) to the Swedish government that would make an extradition possible. As far as I know, though, Assange cannot be tried with treason in the US (which has a possible death penalty) because he is not a US citizen.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Ri...

The US & EU have signed treaties requiring that the death penalty not be imposed (or carried out) if there's an extradition.

http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/justice_freedom_secur...

Why someone would flee Sweden to go to the UK when they are afraid of US extradition is beyond me. The UK has a much closer relationship with the US.

They can't. There are laws in most countries that if country A does the right legal dances for extradition, then legally they must be extradited. What people are asking for is the government/politicians to somehow override the judicial or legal system, and ensure one legal thing doesn't happen.

That's rendition which Sweden has recently resisted wrt the US. Extradition is merely treaties and regulation, not strictly law. And it's full of nuances - e.g. exceptions for political crimes which is probably highly relevant in this case. I see no reason why a team of lawyers paid the same amount of cash reference in the article wouldn't be able to sort this out to the mutual satisfaction of the two (three if you include the UK) parties involved.

That story has never made any sense to me. The U.S. and Britain are far closer allies with a much longer history of extradition. If the U.S. wanted to extradite Assange they would have done it from Britain. Extraditing him to Sweden first only to later extradite him to the U.S. is non-sensical.