Reading down through all of the comments, I can see that people have a totally mixed opinion of how this can happen. Some people think that the US have no intention of wanting to extradite and charge Assange, but Assange and his counsel have repeatedly (in the last month) requested that the US make a statement confirming this. The matter of the fact is, many high profile American's have said that he should be killed, and put to death.

Onto the other topic of the rape charges, I think some people don't fully understand the facts surrounding the charge. I didn't either until I spent thirty minutes and read this article: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/07/19/3549280.ht...

But from this transcript... these are the key points:

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The "sexual assault/rape/molestation" charges were filed after two women Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilen went to the police to seek advice if they could compel Assange to take a STD test since they did not use a condom during sex.

Both of the women went to the Klara police station in central Stockholm, however, it is mentioned that Ardin had gone along primarily to support Wilen.

Ardin had been frequently in the company of Assange. She had previously described him as such a "cool man" (Twitter). They also arrived and left together at a Crayfish party (equivalent of a cocktail party). Ardin was sharing accomodation with Assange and had refused an offer from someone else for temporary accomodation.

The day after the accusation of rape and molesation Ardin sent a SMS saying : "I've just spent some time with the coolest people in the world".

SMS text messages were also exchanged between Sofia and Ardin, which showed that the two of them knew of the relationship between each other and Assange.

Ardin responded to a friend who was looking for Assange : "He's not here. He's planned to have sex with the cashmere girl every evening, but not made it. Maybe he finally found time yesterday?"

The Swedish police, totally railroaded the investigation. Interviews have been leaked with Assange, and Wilen commented initially "that she became so distraught she refused to give any more testimony and refused to sign what had been taken down.".
Assange went freely for interview to the police station and was released without immediate charge, and was free to travel. Almost immediately there after, another warrant was issued for his arrest.

Eventually, it was also upgraded to an Interpol "Red Notice".

It's alleged (from the transcripts), that Sweden has frankly always been the United States' lap dog and it's not a matter we are particularly proud of. The Swedish Government has... essentially, whenever a US official says, "Jump", the Sweden Government asks, "How high?"

Assange's legal team are clearly trying to point out that US is coercing all of this behind the scenes so that he can then be extradited from Sweden and face trial for conspiracy to commit espionage.

> The burden should be on the United States Government to say, "We are not planning to prosecute Julian Assange". If they just gave that assurance, I can guarantee you that Julian Assange would go to Sweden tomorrow.

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This is hugely and unequivocally politically motivated. I'm British, and I am largely ashamed that pressure is not being placed on Sweden by the foreign minister to have them reinvestigate the extradition request. Also, Sweden will, and has previously done all it can to scratch America's back.

Assange should stay put, until US says "we will not pursue extradition from Sweden". (Which they will not do.)