U.S. Seeks Snowden Extradition After Espionage Charges

U.S. Seeks Snowden Extradition After Espionage Charges

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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