Well, this is what I thought too. Also, any other country under US influence would have handed him over to the US. See the saga that poor Assange has gone through. What worries me is that public opinion is rather silent to stories like those of Assange and Snowden. Whistle blowing should be seen as a right. If the organization I work for is ethically and morally misbehaving, I have the right to blow the whistle through the right internal channels to start with. If nobody listens, then you take it to the next level.