Inside the Terminal D building where Edward Snowden is believed to be staying. (EPA)
Inside the Terminal D building where Edward Snowden is believed to be staying. (EPA)
Edward Snowden (REUTERS)
US authorities botched admitted spy leaker Edward Snowden’s middle name, allowing him to flee Hong Kong and avoid arrest there, officials in the former British colony said.
The former National Security Agency contractor Snowden, who had been hiding out in Hong Kong since spilling his guts about American spying practices, suddenly left the Chinese-controlled island for Moscow on Sunday.
US officials were infuriated that Snowden was allowed to leave, but Hong Kong Justice Secretary Rimsky Yuen said yesterday that discrepancies in the paperwork filed by American authorities were to blame.
Yuen said Hong Kong immigration records listed Snowden’s middle name as “Joseph,” but the American alert to have the leaker’s passport invalidated listed his middle name as “James.”
Also, Washington failed to provide Snowden’s passport number, according to Yuen.
“Up to the moment Snowden left the city, the US government had not replied to the Department of Justice’s request for the necessary information,” Yuen said.
“Therefore, it was impossible and there was no legal basis under Hong Kong law for the Department of Justice to ask a Hong Kong judge to sign off on a provisional arrest warrant.”
Yuen added: “[Thus] there then was no legal basis to restrict or ban Mr. Snowden from leaving Hong Kong.”
The Washington Post reported Monday that Snowden’s legal team heeded warnings of a shadowy government contact of theirs, who had urged the wanted American to skip town.
Now Snowden appears to be stuck inside a Russian airport, although no one has seen him.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday Snowden was in a “transit zone” of Moscow’s airport and vowed not to arrest and extradite him as American authorities have requested.
“Snowden’s American passport is void and he is not in possession of any other document with which he can prove his identity,” a source close to Snowden told Russia’s Interfax News Agency.
“For this reason, he has to stay in Sheremetyevo’s transit zone and cannot leave Russia nor buy a ticket.”
Since US authorities have invalidated Snowden’s passport, it’s unclear how the fleeing snitch could get out of Russia without that proper documentation.
Even though he’s in travel limbo, Snowden has apparently taken good care of his stolen American secrets.
A confidante of Snowden’s said the snitch has planted that sensitive material with various sources in case “anything happens” to him during his flight from American justice.
Snowden “has taken extreme precautions to make sure many different people around the world have these archives to insure the stories will inevitably be published,” London Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald told The Daily Beast yesterday.
Snowden spilled his guts about American spying practices and phone surveillance to the Guardian and Washington Post earlier this month, when he was holed up in Hong Kong.
Greenwald said he has the virtual key to unlock all of those secrets.
The people given possession of Snowden’s sensitive files “cannot access them yet because they are highly encrypted and they do not have the passwords,” according to Greenwald.
“If anything happens at all to Edward Snowden, he told me he has arranged for them to get access to the full archives,” Greenwald said.
Meanwhile, Ecuador could take months to decide whether to grant Snowden asylum, and the country’s relations with the US would be one of the factors considered, an official from the Latin American country said Wednesday.
Speaking during a visit to Malaysia’s main city, Kuala Lumpur, Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino compared Snowden’s case to that of Julian Assange, the founder of anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, who has been given asylum in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.
“It took us two months to make a decision in the case of Assange, so do not expect us to make a decision sooner this time,” Patino told reporters.
Asked if Ecuador would provide protection to Snowden while considering his request for asylum, Patino said through a translator that if Snowden “goes to the embassy, then we will make a decision.”
Patino refused to say what criteria Ecuador would use to decide, but added that his government would “consider all these risks,” including concerns that helping Snowden would hurt trade with the US and damage his country’s economy.