Reuters Photojournalism
Our day's top images, in-depth photo essays and offbeat slices of life. See the best of Reuters photography. See more | Photo caption
Egypt's Mursi protests
Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi clings to office as protesters demand that he resign. Slideshow
Obama in Africa
President Obama is seeking to build a new economic partnership with Africa at the end of a tour of the fast-growing continent. Slideshow
Sponsored Links
U.S. accuses Hong Kong of using pretext to not hand over Snowden
WASHINGTON |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Wednesday accused Hong Kong of having feigned confusion over Edward Snowden's middle name so as not to detain the former U.S. intelligence contractor before he fled to Russia.
Hong Kong responded to the U.S. demand for Snowden's arrest on espionage charges by asking for a clarification of Snowden's middle name, a U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the spokeswoman said that because Snowden's image was widely available through news outlets, Hong Kong's request for information was not genuine.
"That Hong Kong would ask for more information about his identity demonstrates that it was simply trying to create a pretext for not acting on the provisional arrest request," the spokeswoman said.
She did not confirm an earlier report from the Associated Press that the U.S. government got Snowden's middle name wrong in documents it submitted to Hong Kong.
Hong Kong immigration records listed Snowden's middle name as Joseph, while the U.S. government used the name James in some documents, the U.S. news agency said.
Snowden, a former contract employee for the National Security Agency in Hawaii, left Hong Kong on Sunday and is now in the transit area of a Moscow airport.
Snowden is facing espionage and theft charges in the United States after leaking details about secret U.S. surveillance programs to the news media.
Ecuador said on Wednesday in a statement from its Embassy in Washington that it was reviewing an asylum request from Snowden and that the United States must submit any objections to the request in writing.
The U.S. documents sent to Hong Kong also were deficient in not including Snowden's passport number, the Associated Press reported. The Justice Department spokeswoman said the U.S. extradition treaty with Hong Kong did not require a passport number for a provisional arrest.
(Reporting by David Ingram; Editing by Howard Goller, Sandra Maler and Eric Beech)
- Tweet this
- Link this
- Share this
- Digg this
- Reprints
It is also funny that the Justice department is saying that passport number is not required under the extradition treaty. Strange, the extradition treaty also don’t include “political offenses”. I would think an employee revealing a government agency using blanket spying techniques on Americans and foreign nationals would certainly fall under that category. The charge of espionage only holds water if Snowden was spying for a foreign entity which he clearly wasn’t.
1. Based on my personal experience, I know all legal documents (IRS,Franchise Tax Board, DMV, etc.) always put our identification # on it. So, I totally don’t buy that the Justice department claimed passport is not required on the documents.
2. Yes, the whole world knows what is going on and who is Edward Snowden. However, the proper legal procedure and require documents still need to comply with. If HK arrests Edward without the correct legal documents, HK would destroy their own legal system and reputation.
Follow Reuters