U.S. presses for Snowden arrest

No action yet by Hong Kong

Obama administration officials Saturday publicly increased pressure on Hong Kong to move quickly to arrest Edward Snowden, a week after U.S. officials asked its government to detain the admitted leaker of documents about top-secret surveillance programs.

White House national security adviser Thomas Donilon said U.S. officials “are in conversation” with Hong Kong authorities and have asked the special administrative region of China to not only arrest the former National Security Agency contractor but also to extradite him to the United States to stand trial on criminal charges.

Donilon said U. S. officials believe the charges against Snowden “present a good case for extradition” under the U. S. and Hong Kong Agreement for the Surrender of Fugitive Offenders.

“Hong Kong has been a historically good partner of the United States in law enforcement matters, and we expect them to comply with the treaty in this case,” Donilon said.

The U. S. government, which has made the Snowden case a top priority and has devoted significant resources to prosecuting him, asked Hong Kong on June 14 to detain Snowden on a provisional arrest warrant. That same day, federal prosecutors filed sealed criminal charges against him, including theft, “unauthorized communication of national defense information” and “willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person.”

The fact that the U. S. government asked Hong Kong to detain Snowden emerged Friday in news reports about the sealed criminal complaint.

The reasons for the apparent lack of action by Hong Kong are unclear. Officials might still be looking for Snowden. The South China Morning Post reported Saturday that Snowden is not under police protection but is in a “safe place” in Hong Kong. The newspaper also reported that Snowden had revealed more details about U.S. surveillance of Hong Kong and China.

Snowden, who turned 30 on Friday, revealed himself June 9 as the anonymous source for articles in the British newspaper the Guardian and The Washington Post about the NSA surveillance of telephone calls and Internet communications. He was staying in an upscale hotel in Hong Kong, a city he said he felt might give him asylum.

Snowden subsequently left the hotel and it is unclear where he went. In a live Web chat Monday, he suggested that he would try to elude authorities as long as possible.