Has there been any kind of comparable instance though? Had he skipped bail by just not showing up we could compare the manhunt that happened with any other bail skipper. But his location was very publicly known - what would a reasonable government do in that situation in your view?
But isn't the lack of comparable cases exactly the point?
It was claimed upthread that "Assange has made it more likely that future defendants will be denied bail." That sounds good, except that Assange skipped bail by getting political asylum. It's not exactly a generalizable argument against bail, and even within the context of leakers it appears unprecedented. The case is exceptional, which is what makes it politicized and irrelevant to 'normal' bail skip situations.
Regardless of why Assange was wanted, we can still say it's political when Britain threatened to storm a foreign embassy to recover an asylum-seeker. That's an inherently political decision, in the sense that no domestic police force in the Western world would do it without political guidance.
None of which is to say what's true in Assange's case. But I'm not impressed by the arguments "now everyone can beat rape charges by receiving asylum and spending 5 years trapped in a foreign embassy" and "threatening to raid an embassy to capture an asylum grantee is apolitical".
As you say, this is not a simple criminal case - criminals don't broadcast their location when skipping bail. So you have to deal with it politically. A reasonable government would have done that a long time ago, getting Sweden to change its stance sooner (as it eventually happened anyway, like most people asked for and predicted, since it had been done before). Once that is sorted, you can liquidate it all as "a big misunderstanding" without losing face.
Unfortunately now it's very late, and I find it hard to believe the person responsible for this stupid position in the first place, currently leading the country, will do anything smart to resolve this for good.
I don't see how that even comes close to being a good faith reading of toyg's point. Assange's "celebrity", to the extent that we can even use a term like that to describe him in this context, flows from the political controversy surrounding him. Calling it celebrity abstracts away the political nature of Assange's status which is critical to any consideration of the charges against him.
No one is suggesting that a celebrity like Drake could apply for political asylum at an Ecuadorian embassy to avoid rape charges. But if that's what you're taking away from the argument it's probably worth reading it again and engaging with more good faith.
