Well, they _did_ warn him about the cat litter issue.
All jest aside, I wonder what he could have done differently (not taking sides here, just speculating).
One option would have been to live among the public in the UK, and let himself be extradited to Sweden, then the US. This act alone would have drawn attention to the fact that people in the EU can - under some circumstances - be extradited to the US, which would have been alarming to the general populace in Europe since the US still has the death penalty. The possibility that he would have been imprisoned in Sweden instead would have been weighed against indefinite house arrest in the Ecuadorian embassy - for 7 years in this case.
In any event, I think we'll learn quite a bit about international relations work in practice.
All jest aside, I wonder what he could have done differently (not taking sides here, just speculating).
One option would have been to live among the public in the UK, and let himself be extradited to Sweden, then the US. This act alone would have drawn attention to the fact that people in the EU can - under some circumstances - be extradited to the US, which would have been alarming to the general populace in Europe since the US still has the death penalty. The possibility that he would have been imprisoned in Sweden instead would have been weighed against indefinite house arrest in the Ecuadorian embassy - for 7 years in this case.
In any event, I think we'll learn quite a bit about international relations work in practice.