> What I don't remember was any reasoning on why he thought it more likely that he'd be extradited from Sweden to the US rather than from the UK, who are particularly close?
Not long before the Assange case ended, Swedish police kidnapped two asylum seekers (and yes, kidnapped is the right term - it was not an arrest, and has since been found to violate Swedish law) and handed them over to the CIA who handed them over to the regime they fled, which subsequently tortured them. The kidnapping and rendition was both a violation of Swedish law, and a violation of international treaties, and yet nothing happened to the people responsible to my knowledge.
You might see why someone who believed - rightfully, as it turned out years later - the US wanted to file charges and get their hands on him, might worry that the Swedish government would turn a blind eye to him being handed over to the US.
Whether or not he was right to fear that, it seems reasonable to believe his fear was genuine, not least because he chose to put himself in a situation that has kept him imprisoned in inhumane conditions far longer than he would've ever served if he was convicted of what he was accused of in Sweden.
The UK has resisted on more than one occasion. That the Assange extradition saga has lasted this long, is a prime example of that. Other cases before them has shown that the UK courts have a spine, and UK politicians, while they have far more power to override the courts if they're willing to do so openly before parliament are too timid to let things like the kidnapping and renditions Sweden were complicit in happen.
But in any case, the issue isn't whether he was right, but whether he believed he'd be safer in the UK than Sweden, and I think the Swedish prosecutor did a whole lot to make him worry that something fishy was going on. I've written more than once over the years I think she was acting out of political/ideological reasons (specifically, she had a long history of fighting for much stricter treatment of rape cases) rather than due to US pressure, but the net effect was a whole string of incidents around the case that'd easily look mighty suspicious for someone worrying about the US trying to get them.
I don't know whether or not he was right to fear it, but I'm surprised he was.
Not long before the Assange case ended, Swedish police kidnapped two asylum seekers (and yes, kidnapped is the right term - it was not an arrest, and has since been found to violate Swedish law) and handed them over to the CIA who handed them over to the regime they fled, which subsequently tortured them. The kidnapping and rendition was both a violation of Swedish law, and a violation of international treaties, and yet nothing happened to the people responsible to my knowledge.
You might see why someone who believed - rightfully, as it turned out years later - the US wanted to file charges and get their hands on him, might worry that the Swedish government would turn a blind eye to him being handed over to the US.
Whether or not he was right to fear that, it seems reasonable to believe his fear was genuine, not least because he chose to put himself in a situation that has kept him imprisoned in inhumane conditions far longer than he would've ever served if he was convicted of what he was accused of in Sweden.