So why didn't they just do that while he was in Sweden? Having him under arrest in Sweden would make it more difficult, not easier.

Because as of leaving Sweden, they had only released the Collateral Murder video. The Iraq War documents and Cablegate happened while he was in the UK.

But then (according to the conspiracy theory) they could have engineered false rape accusations in any country that Assange had previously visited -- and that's a long list. It seems unlikely that Sweden would be at the top of the list. It seems far more likely that he just so happens to have raped a woman in Sweden while visiting.

On top of that, it would have been impossible to abduct him while he was in Police custody in Sweden without causing a major international incident.

Frankly, I'm losing track of all the different conspiracy theories. Some people are saying that the rape allegations were necessary to discredit him prior to extradition, because the US was super sensitive to public opinion. Others (like you) are saying that the US was so insensitive to public opinion that they planned to have him abducted and/or murdered extrajudicially. All of this crap is completely made up.

Other countries didn't have recently closed cases to reopen that also allow extraordinary rendition.

But the rape allegations were manufactured, right? There was no particular reason to manufacture them in Sweden just because that was the country Assange was in immediately before he went to the UK.

Extraordinary rendition would be pretty much impossible once he was in Police custody in Sweden anyway, so I don't know why you keep referring to it.

Like I said, it's hard to keep track of all the different conspiracy theories.

> But the rape allegations were manufactured, right?

Not likely. To keep it hypothetical, if an opportunity arises, you take it. Similarly, the CIA didn't start vaccination programs in the third world to later use them as a cover to look for Bin Laden, but they did take the opportunity of those program's known existence as cover for their intelligence operations in Pakistan.

> Extraordinary rendition would be pretty much impossible once he was in Police custody in Sweden anyway, so I don't know why you keep referring to it.

Not really. You can release him from custody so he's on the street again. Afterwards, just kidnap him, drive him to the airport, fly him out to the US. That's standard operating procedure for US intelligence services in Europe with multiple documented cases.

>Not likely.

I know that it’s not likely. But a lot of people do think that the allegations were manufactured by the CIA. As I said, it is really difficult, with so many people commenting, to figure out exactly which conspiracy theory is under discussion at any given point.

>Not really.

I don’t mean that it’s physically impossible. I mean that it would have created an enormous international incident if the CIA abducted Assange without the cooperation of the Swedish Police, or if the Swedish Police had collaborated with the CIA to disappear a suspect in an ongoing criminal investigation. Take a look at the case of Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad al-Zery in 2006. The rendition of two Egyptians that no-one has heard of caused enough of a diplomatic incident that Sweden stopped CIA rendition flights.

> I don’t mean that it’s physically impossible. I mean that it would have created an enormous international incident if the CIA abducted Assange without the cooperation of the Swedish Police, or if the Swedish Police had collaborated with the CIA to disappear a suspect in an ongoing criminal investigation. Take a look at the case of Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad al-Zery in 2006. The rendition of two Egyptians that no-one has heard of caused enough of a diplomatic incident that Sweden stopped CIA rendition flights.

I mean... it wasn't all that bad in the Agiza and al-Zery case for Sweden. No heads rolled in the Swedish government over the matter. And there were literally Swedish personnel assisting.

Do you have any evidence that Sweden has stopped allowing rendition flights?

That says that the Swedish military stopped _a_ rendition flight, because their rules weren't being followed.

Nowhere does it say that rendition flights are off the table in Sweden anymore.

>An acute diplomatic crisis broke out between the United States and Sweden in 2006 when Swedish authorities put a stop to CIA rendition flights [...]

> Steven V. Noble wrote in cables reveled by WkiLeaks that the Swedish government reacted strongly because rules had not been followed.

> A spokesperson from Säpo, Swedish police Intelligence Service, confirmed parts the newspaper report, adding that there have been no more extraordinary rendition flights landing in Sweden since.

I have not found any references to subsequent rendition flights involving Sweden, and it's been a good while since that article was published.

Apart from that, I don't really know what kind of confirmation you can be asking for. One cannot conclusively rule out the possibility that Sweden is still involved in extraordinary rendition, but one also cannot rule out that possibility for the UK, or for many other countries that Assange has spent time in.