[chmars]

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).

[notahacker]

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.

[whamlastxmas]

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.