The article fails to point out that there is substantial precedent for the UK to ignore extradition requests by other EU members. Augusto Pinochet is perhaps an obvious example.
Although I am loathe to rank vile behavior in general, crimes against humanity would seem to demand more careful consideration during extradition proceedings than the allegations against Mr. Assange.
This seems to be an allusion to the popular principal of "The Law Of Travesty", which asserts that if someone has benefited from a legal travesty (such as Spain's inability to extradite Pinochet from the UK), justice demands that everyone else benefit from the same travesty.
In fact, justice demands the opposite. Pinochet was protected from extradition because he, unlike Assange, was a head of state and enjoyed a supposed immunity from prosecution as a result. The hesitation to force Pinochet to face due process for his (very compellingly) alleged crimes is a travesty. In recognizing that a travesty occurred, we don't just award points to one state and accord demerits to another: we also seek to avoid the recurrence of that travesty in the future.
Pinochet was protected from extradition because he, unlike Assange, was a head of state and enjoyed a supposed immunity from prosecution as a result.
I'm sure it was also quite helpful that he was friendly with various high ranking British politicians, meeting Thatcher several times, and helping them with a little war they had in the South Atlantic.
So does American law, but you are clearly misunderstanding what "precedent" means.
Judicial decisions operate as precedent. Executive decisions do not. A judicial decision that Pinochet could not be extradited would be precedent; a decision not to extradite him would not be. The distinction is that the actual decision to extradite or not is based on both circumstances unique to the case and to the particular views of the administration making the decision.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment_and_arrest_of_August...
Although I am loathe to rank vile behavior in general, crimes against humanity would seem to demand more careful consideration during extradition proceedings than the allegations against Mr. Assange.