Assange obviously stayed in the UK because he had excellent legal support, the linguistic ability to understand what was going on, the ability to continue his p

Assange obviously stayed in the UK because he had excellent legal support, the linguistic ability to understand what was going on, the ability to continue his professional work, and access to a legal system that should not have granted extradition. How is this baffling? More generally, the "weakness in [your] reasoning" is partly the arrogance to imagine that you understand Assange's legal options better than his lawyers did. But it is also partly the logical fallacy of ad hominem rhetoric, since you accuse him of hypocrisy and then use that accusation to try to discredit concerns of his that very clearly have nothing to do with questions of personal character. As other commenters on this thread have mentioned, and as minimal research will confirm, Sweden has a long history of illegal rendition. Its handling of this case is extremely unorthodox, politically motivated, and shows a fairly clear attempt to maneuver Assange into indefinite detention through a legal process that even the UK High Court commented on as being unreasonable.