Also, fleeing would make him look pretty bad in the eyes of many and I personally don't think he would be stupid enough to do so (that's not much of a guarantee, I'll give you that), since capture (see 'island') is almost inevitable.
I wonder if anybody has access to what those maximum penalties of the charges brought are (under Swedish law), and how they relate to being jailed pending an extradition hearing. That would be interesting because I read in one uncorroborated source that the punishment for the circumstances described is actually a fine, rather than jail time and it would seem that if that is really the case that any jail time at all (such as pending this hearing) would be excessive. If Assange fights extradition do they plan to hold him in custody during the whole time ? And if so how is that different from using this as a ploy to simply lock him up because he's a 'risk' ?