The U.S. has contacted authorities in Hong Kong to seek the
extradition of Edward Snowden, the contractor it charged with
espionage for exposing a secret government electronic-surveillance
program, according to a State Department official.
The charges against Snowden, which include theft of government
property, are the first step in seeking to have the former Booz Allen
Hamilton Holding Corp. (BAH) employee, who worked with the National
Security Agency, arrested and returned to the U.S. from Hong Kong, a
special administrative region of China.
The U.S. requested that Hong Kong authorities detain Snowden while the
extradition request is being finalized, according to two U.S.
officials familiar with the matter.
The request for a "provisional arrest" warrant for Snowden came as
U.S. officials and their Hong Kong counterparts continued regular
contact -- something that began as prosecutors were working to draft
the complaint, one of the U.S. officials said.
To have Snowden detained, the State Department will have to make a
surrender request under a 1996 treaty with Hong Kong.
The charges, filed June 14 in Virginia federal court and unsealed June
21 in a cover sheet of the complaint released by the Justice
Department, aren't necessarily of the "political character" that Hong
Kong law prevents extradition for, according to Simon Young, director
of the Center for Comparative and Public Law at the University of Hong
Kong.
More important "will be all the surrounding circumstances including
the motivation for the prosecution, the unfairness of his trial at
home, and his likely treatment in custody," Young said in an e-mail
response to questions yesterday.
30 Years
The full complaint wasn't available on the U.S. court docket. Snowden
faces as many as 10 years in prison on the theft count and 10 years on
each of two espionage charges. The State Department referred all
questions on Snowden to the Justice Department.
Nanda Chitre, a Justice Department spokeswoman, declined to comment on
whether the U.S. had asked for Snowden's detention.
U.S. investigators are probing how Snowden copied highly classified
materials and disseminated them to two news outlets. The documents
disclosed the NSA's operation to obtain records of phone calls by
Americans and to spy on Internet communications.
Local Law
Hong Kong's Police Commissioner Tsang Wai-hung yesterday declined to
comment on Snowden's case, according to comments broadcast live on
local television. An e-mail to the office of Hong Kong's chief
executive Leung Chun-ying wasn't immediately responded to.
Leung refused to comment on whether the U.S. had approached Chinese
authorities about extradition or other assistance during a June 12
interview with Bloomberg Television in New York.
Hong Kong handles all extradition requests according to its laws and
won't allow unlawful or unfair treatment, Secretary for Justice Rimsky
Yuen told reporters on June 21.
Under Hong Kong law, Leung decides whether to act on a surrender
request. If he does, a magistrate could then issue a warrant for
Snowden's arrest, according to Young.
Once Snowden was in custody, a magistrate would weigh the evidence in
the U.S. case. The magistrate's decision can be appealed through three
separate courts. Leung would then have to decide whether to sign a
surrender order allowing Snowden to be extradited, Young said.
Fight Plan
Snowden, who turned 30 on June 21, said in an interview published June
12 in Hong Kong's South China Morning Post that he hasn't committed
any crime and plans to fight the U.S. government in the Hong Kong
courts.
In a June 9 video interview, Snowden took responsibility for releasing
the classified documents, telling the Guardian newspaper he did it to
alert the American public to the scope of the surveillance and to
protect "basic liberties."
Snowden fled to Hong Kong May 20 before revealing himself as the
source of the leak. While in the city, Snowden added to the
disclosures he made to the Washington Post and U.K.-based Guardian,
providing information that the U.S. intercepted secret communications
by then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev when he attended a Group of
20 Summit in London in 2009 and monitored the phone calls and
computers of other foreign leaders at the meeting.
The Guardian on June 21 reported Snowden showed documents disclosing
that the British spy agency GCHQ was tapping a global network of phone
and internet cables and sharing the information with the NSA.
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