I AM grateful for Gwynne Dyer's thoughtful recent column as he suggests that "there probably isn't a US plot to grab Assange".
On the facts as we have them I'd tend to lean more on the side of those who assert there is a real threat of extradition or even rendition if Assange goes to Sweden.
I base my opinion on the "implausibility", as Mr Assange's lawyer Julian Burnside put it recently, that the British and Swedish governments would take such extraordinary measures simply to make Assange answer some questions.
Remember, he has not been charged with anything and he has repeatedly made himself available for questioning by Swedish prosecutors in the UK.
The fact that the Swedes interviewed a murder suspect in Serbia recently and the British resisted extraditing mass murderer Pinochet to his native land some years back also does not sit well with their seemingly tame ambition of interviewing Assange.
This is not the behaviour of authorities who simply want someone to "help them with inquiries". If I was Assange I'd be staying put.
HANS PAAS
Castlemaine