I found this while Googling with similar questions in mind. http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/07/19/3549280.htm http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/storie

I found this while Googling with similar questions in mind. http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/07/19/3549280.htm http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/07/19/3549280.ht... 4Corners is an excellent in-depth news program, along the lines of Frontline in the US. You can watch the video or simply read a transcript of the entire program. It seems fairly clear that the Swedish authorities have behaved very strangely: 1) the "victims" don't think they were raped, they wanted Assange to submit to an STD test, 2) the first prosecutor didn't think there was a criminal case, 3) the Swedes used an "Interpol Red Notice" -- normally reserved for imminent terrorist threads -- on Julian Assange (apparently neither Gaddafi, when he was on the run, nor the current president of Syria have warranted such a notice). As regards your last question -- political asylum is generally unusual to begin with, and the number of parties involved is hardly unusual. A "typical" asylum case from the cold war would usually involve a citizen of an Eastern Bloc country seeking protection in an embassy (usually the US or a country friendly to the US) in another country. So that's three or four jurisdictions involved off that bat. During WWII you'd have a fairly typical case of an allied airman fleeing from occupied France (two jurisdictions to begin with) into Spain, and getting to an allied embassy. Again -- per the 4Corners report, the Australian government has not so much been "silent" as has been "all in" with the US government.