They were waiting in front of the embassy 24/7. We can now see that he was exactly right in his prediction of what would happen if he left, and how. He's been held in solitary confinement, itself already widely regarded as torture.

Saying "he could have left" in this situation, after being shown exactly how that would have/did go down, is like camping out in front of your ex-girlfriend's house with a baseball bat, then telling the officer you didn't beat her and thus did nothing wrong. Except the whole world can see you totally did beat her when she finally left the house.