Assange: Refugee or Fugitive?

[Darth]

And most importent of all, why should it? A nation and it`s juristiction shouldn`t be the playball of any individual. Which is why I also understand why Sweden turned down the offer by Ecuador to hold the questioning within the embessy.

And a nation shouldn't play sillybuggers with it's own laws or extradite people where they face torture (and it's not been more than a decade since that incident). Given their (very recent) past, I hardly see asking for a such a guarantee as an unreasonable request, they are not at the moment very trustworthy. Now Sweden may be unable to give such a guarantee (not because it's independent, as independence, along with a solid history, would be a prerequisite to being able to give a guarantee worth a damn) because of it's own laws (and fair enough, it should follow it's own just laws*, if only it were consistent) but it does have other avenues that it can legally pursue (that moros has pointed out), such as the interview.

*the prohibition against judicial decisions being predetermined, a very reasonable law.

Going off of Moros's info:

But pointing to this law would seem to indicate that extradition is an option. You could ask for a guarantee from a country asking that they won't literally crucify you if you came in for questioning, how many would point to laws that say they can't predetermine cases, how many would point to their own laws and agreements showing how they are prohibited from executing or torturing people? If Swedish law ruled out any chance of him being extradited to the US, they would surely just point to that. That they can't and won't is a worrying sign. If he was asking for a guarantee that sweden wouldn't personally torture him, I don't doubt they would say "we can't torture you, look at these laws that prohibit us from doing so" rather than "oh sorry, we can't predetermine these things, look at these laws that stop us from predetermining judicial decisions."

Were I in his position (and I find the whole thing very very suss) I would stay well away from Sweden.