Leaker would return to U.S. for fair trial: father
Fugitive is being ‘manipulated’ by Wikileaks, Lonnie Snowden says
NEW YORK — The fugitive intelligence contractor who leaked documents on U.S. spying operations is being “manipulated” by people around him and would return to the United States if he were guaranteed a fair trial, his father said Friday.
Edward Snowden, who released details of National Security Agency surveillance programs before fleeing overseas, could come home if allowed to choose the location of his prosecution and if he was not subjected to a “gag” order, Lonnie Snowden said in an interview.
His son, 30, is still believed to be in Russia after leaving Hong Kong and booking a flight for Cuba, which he did not take. He is thought to be accompanied by Sarah Harrison, a legal adviser for WikiLeaks, the pro-transparency group that released a vast cache of U.S. diplomatic cables in 2010, and ex-girlfriend of its founder, Julian Assange.
Lonnie Snowden told NBC News that WikiLeaks was taking advantage of his son. “I am concerned about those who surround him,” he said. “WikiLeaks — if you look at past history — their focus isn’t necessarily the Constitution of the United States. It’s simply to release as much information as possible. So that alone is a concern for me.”
Snowden is facing charges of espionage in the U.S. and has requested political asylum in Ecuador. He has not been seen in public since he arrived in Moscow on Sunday. Russian officials have said he remains in a transit zone at Sheremetyevo airport.
Moscow has declined to extradite Snowden, but appears reluctant to risk a diplomatic incident by allowing him to enter the country formally.
Lonnie Snowden was poised Friday night to state that his son could return to the U.S. in certain circumstances in a letter sent via his lawyer to Eric Holder, the U.S. attorney general.
He conceded that he had not been in contact with his son since the weeks before his decision to leave his job as an analyst at Booz Allen, a major U.S. defence contractor, at an NSA listening post in Hawaii, and hand a trove of documents to The Guardian and Washington Post newspapers.
Amid an ongoing dispute about the Chinese dependency’s failure to approve a U.S. extradition request before he travelled on to Russia, Hong Kong stated Friday that Snowden would not be welcome to return because his American passport has been cancelled.
“Under the laws of Hong Kong, a passenger coming to Hong Kong must possess a valid travel document,” the Immigration Department said.
U.S. officials accuse Hong Kong of deliberately stalling when the request was made, giving Snowden time to escape. Chinese officials claim that the contractor’s middle name was spelled incorrectly on the U.S. application, meaning that it had to be sent back for corrections.
Hong Kong officials are also demanding more information from the U.S. on claims by Snowden that he had proof that American spies had eavesdropped on communications in China.
Ecuador this week said that a trade pact with the U.S., which is due for renewal, had become a “new instrument of blackmail” in negotiations over Snowden’s fate.
Sen. Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who chairs the Senate foreign relations committee, said that if Ecuador granted Snowden asylum, he would “make sure there is no chance for renewal” of pacts that allow the country to exploit duty-free trading with the U.S.
In his letter requesting asylum in Ecuador, Snowden said it was “unlikely” that he would get a fair trial in U.S. courts.
Lonnie Snowden, a retired U.S. Coast Guard officer, said he believed the American public would forgive his son, who could face life in prison or even the death penalty if convicted under the Espionage Act. “He has betrayed his government, but I don’t believe that he’s betrayed the people of the United States,” he said.