In most court systems, the defendant is not required to say anything. So (in theory) he can just be tried in absentia. He can even have lawyers representing him.
At least to me (but I'm not a lawyer), the current system violates european human rights. Either he is charged with a crime, in which case the court case should have started years ago (and ended), or he is not officially charged with a crime, in which case he should be free to go where ever he wants until he is charged. The current situation is absurd.
Because in Sweden, procedurally, you do not get charged until you are in custody. Largely because they don't want to make it a separate concern as you put it.
I'm my opinion this goes against european human rights. As soon as Sweden asked for him to be extradited from England, the clock starts ticking. After two years, they violated his right to a speedy trail and he is free to go.
I'm really sad that his hasn't gone to the European Court of Human Right to decide against Sweden (or England, because it is actually England that is keeping him locked up).
Note that I do not have a high opinion of Assange, and it is quite possible that according to Swedish law he did rape those women. But he should have been entitled to a trial in absentia.
Rather extradited – to Sweden or the US, the latter maybe via Sweden … that seems to be the real issue, not the rape accusations (although rape accusations are known as a powerful weapon to destroy enemies – although that does of course not rule out that Assange is actually a rapist under Swedish law).
I think it's quite difficult to sustain the argument that the rape accusations aren't the real issue when he's twice fled jurisdiction on the day it became certain he would be charged with rape if he didn't. If the US had wanted to try to extradite him through legal means, the US had ample opportunity to arrange it during the period Assange was calmly reporting to the UK police every day whilst his legal team tried to thwart the European Arrest Warrant on technical grounds. If they wanted to try to extradite him through illegal means they could have done so at many points during Assange's life and a high profile court case would actually be a major inconvenience.
Fleeing at convenient timing is evidence that the threat of getting arrested and extradited was real. It says nothing about the validity of the sexual assault claims.
He refuses to go anywhere that makes him extraditable to the US. The Swedish, in turn, say roughly "our general rules are such that we can't guarantee that, and an exception isn't practically possible". Which makes sense, it's arguably better to have plain and simple rules than ones that cover every last edge case.
Personally, I think the Swedish should bend their laws. Globalisation is proceeding, and I think there'll be more country-straddling cases in the next century than there were in the past century. If that assumption is correct, writing rules to cover stances like Assange's is more reasonable than it has been.
Sweden shouldn't have to bargain or compromise with someone accused of a crime just because that person is picky about what countries they set foot in for their own reasons.
IF there are US charges against him and IF the US tries to extradite then I'm sure he'll have an opportunity to fight it.
> Sweden shouldn't have to bargain or compromise with someone accused of a crime just because that person is picky about what countries they set foot in for their own reasons.
What is your opinion about what countries should or should not have to do based on? Your feelings about countries in general, or a specific empathy for Sweden?
> IF there are US charges against him and IF the US tries to extradite then I'm sure he'll have an opportunity to fight it.
You're absolutely sure? Why haven't you called Assange yet? I'm sure he'd be happy to know what you know.
The current rules for extradition do have their reasons. You may not want Germany to be able to enforce its strict rules about nazi speech all over the world, or Turkey to be able to imprison people who've offended Erdogan.
Haggling over extradition is not unusual. For example, the US has promised not to use capital punishment in order to extradite people from countries that forbid capital punishment.
There is no request for extradition over which anyone could haggle. There is no concrete evidence that the US is going to make such a request.
If there would be a request, as you say yourself, Sweden doesn't necessarily have to honor it, for example if Assange faces capital punishment. Assange could probably fight extradition in court also.
In any case this is nothing here to suggest that this is anything more than a smokescreen thrown up by Assange to distract from the fact that he's a rapist fleeing prosecution.
Sweden asked Britain to extradite him, and Assange is haggling: "I'll come if you'll let me go wherever I please afterwards". That "if" may be insincere but IMO it counts as haggling.
Leaving aside the contempt for your own professed ideal demonstrated by the implicit suggestion that the complainants are guilty of perjury, wouldn't it be nice if we had some sort of mechanism, oh, say, call it a court, we could use to assess against a legal standard of guilt?
Oh wait, there is. But Assange has chosen to (illegally) run away from a valid investigation.