It's the old adage of:

"accusation on the front page, acquittal on page 13"

While I agree that the behaviour of the UK and the USA is suspect, and also that the incredibly low prosecution rate for sexual assault[0] suggests that a guilty-but-not-infamous person otherwise identical to Assange would probably not have been charged, one of his accusers was trying to reopen the case and get him extradited to Sweden as soon as they found out he was no longer in the embassy, and this failed because the judge decided too much time has passed for a fair trial[1].

[0] assuming UK rates are similar to Swedish rates, given a quick google didn’t give me their stats

[1] https://www.thelocal.se/20191119/swedish-prosecutor-holds-pr...

We'll never know if the charges could be proven because Assange fled to an embassy for many years, denying us all the right to see what would happen at trial.

They where real...

Sure, the attention they got where overblown.

But let's not act like assange wasn't acting like an asshole... Or that the charges where dropped because of reasons related to if he's guilty or not.

The perfect time to be malevolent is never. As for other crimes, stick to one at a time if you must.

Heavier crimes demand heavier evidence. Suspects if major crime are frequently locked up on smaller sometimes entirely unrelated charges.