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Well, if Nils Melzer's account cited above is correct (which I think it is), then the Swedish prosecution likely singled him out for reasons of his Wikileaks work. This does not have to be the CIA pulling strings, it could simply be that prosecutors like the attention they get from bringing cases against famous people.
I do not believe that one should always be on the side of the law as a citizen. If you know that Saudi Arabia is investigating you for blasphemy and the UAE want you for public indecency after a paparazzi took a photo of you urinating in the desert, it can be reasonable to skip bail in the UAE, thereby committing a purely apolitical crime.
I think that spending a year in the embassy has a similar life quality adjustment cost as spending a year in British or Swedish prison. I think I would rather spend a year in Swedish prison than two years stuck in the embassy. So by my reckoning, Assange time in the embassy paid plenty for any crimes he might have committed in Sweden and skipping bail in the UK.
I agree with you that Assange is kind of a prima donna who thinks he is special, but in my opinion the fact that the DOJ opened a case against him shows that he kinda is special, even if he is less special than he thinks he is.
The reason that a traffic stop arrest is not a negotiation is that all the power of the facts and the law is in the hand of the cops. If you manage to run over a sovereign border then suddenly this is not the case any more, so it totally becomes a negotiation.
Cops come to you with an search warrant? No negotiation. Cops want to search your property for a fugitive without a warrant? Negotiate or GTFO.
I will agree this is plausible, but on the other hand the Swedish love prosecuting sex crimes. It's what gets them out of bed in the morning. They live for that shit. Swedish prosecutors don't need the accused to be famous to be dragging them over the coals for possible sex crimes - it's just what they do.
Plus, even if your theory is correct, there's no reason to believe that Sweden would have been particularly receptive to an extradition request from the Americans.
Sure, but the analogy only holds to the extent that you are willing to equivocate between blasphemy laws and sex crime laws.
Plus, if Assange had managed to flee to Ecuador proper then we wouldn't be having this conversation, but all he managed to do was flee to a room in an embassy. At that point it was completely viable for the UK to just wait him out. They didn't need to negotiate. Sure, the UK home sec could probably have made an exception and just dropped all charges and granted Assange asylum... But why the hell would he? Why give a break to a guy who is absolutely determined to become a national embarrassment and inviting those godawful UN rapporteurs to come and accuse the UK of humans rights violations because Assange would rather hole himself up in an embassy for the rest of his life rather than go attend a police interview in god damned Sweden of all places.
That's an inaccurate description. It isn't the police interview in Sweden that he didn't want, it's being thrown into a cell in the US that he didn't want.
So he says. But neither he nor anyone in this thread has offered a coherent explanation for why going to Sweden placed him at risk of being thrown in a US prison cell.
When they fought the extradition attempt to Sweden in the UK courts his lawyers put forward no arguments as to why that might be a risk, they merely hinted.
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