But they can't be, nowhere, not above their respective national laws nor the international ones their countries have signed up to. They can't, because that would instantly make any and all laws meaningless. So you tell me where we find ourselves today.

There's this paragraph in an article by Jonathan Cook entitled Abuses Show Assange Case Was Never About Law, which lists "17 glaring anomalies in Assange's legal troubles", that sums it all up pretty perfectly:

Australia not only refused Assange, a citizen, any help during his long ordeal, but prime minister Julia Gillard even threatened to strip Assange of his citizenship, until it was pointed out that it would be illegal for Australia to do so.

See, Cook is already skipping a step there. Gillard didn't take Assange's citizenship away, because that is against Australian law, but it's just as much against Australian law for a government to let one of its citizens rot in some kind of hell.