[squarefoot]

No, he's someone who is being detained just to make a point and discourage others. Had he really known something of vital importance about the US or any other allied country national security, he'd have been tortured 5 minutes after his arrest.

[ben_w]

He was initially detained for extradition to Sweden on sexual offence charges. The security on that was so light he was able to skip his (expensive, donor-paid) bail.

The intelligence people were annoyed with him back then, hence all the claims of even that arrest being "a conspiracy" sounding at least slightly plausible, and yet, even then, they were demonstrably so uninterested that he could walk to an embassy and claim asylum.

He has been denied bail now because he skipped bail then and when doing so specifically said his reason was not wanting to end up in the country who now wants to extradite him.

And to be blunt, saying "as I am afraid of being extradited to the USA, I want to remain in a country that has a history of extraditing people to the USA rather than be extradited to a different country that has a slightly lesser reputation for the same" was one of the things that a decade ago made me think he was fleeing justice for the sexual offences rather than being sincere in (what ought to have been a legitimate) fear of the USA.

[loup-vaillant]

Still, two things bother me:

Wasn’t there a way for Sweden to promise him not to extradite him to the US?

I’ve heard he wasn’t even heard by Swedish justice, even though he offered to be heard remotely (from England), and such a thing was done in similar cases.

Solving one or the other would have showed with much more certainty whether he was actually trying to flee the sexual charges or not. Though perhaps the Swedish prosecutor just wanted to maximise the chances of having him in Swedish custody.