US federal prosecutors have charged whistleblower Edward Snowden with espionage, theft and conversion of government property in a criminal complaint, and asked Hong Kong to detain him ahead of a move to extradite him.
Charges of espionage and theft are based on Snowden’s extraction of classified documents from NSA servers, which led to publication of several articles regarding the NSA’s surveillance programs, including PRISM, which is alleged to harvest private user data through cooperation with a slew of American corporations including Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Apple and Microsoft.
The implicated companies have denied granting US intelligence services “direct access” to their servers, though during an online chat on Monday Snowden alleged that they had been purposely deceptive in their responses.
The 29-year-old former intelligence analyst flew to Hong Kong last month, having been in contact with journalists at The Washington Post and The Guardian newspapers regarding a series of highly classified documents regarding a massive electronic surveillance program run by the US National Security Agency that he had acquired and intended to leak.
Washington has now asked Hong Kong’s government to detain Snowden on a provisional arrest warrant, according to officials who spoke with the Post. Though the territory is considered a “semi-autonomous” region under Chinese sovereignty, it is unclear whether the matter will be handled solely by Hong Kong’s legal system with or without intervention from Beijing.
Leung Chun-ying, the chief executive of Hong Kong, made a brief statement last week regarding Snowden’s pending prosecution.
“When the relevant mechanism is activated, the Hong Kong [Special Administrative Region] Government will handle the case of Mr. Snowden in accordance with the laws and established procedures of Hong Kong,” he said in a statement.
