The authorities in Hong Kong made a political decision to wash their hands of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and used quibbles about U.S. legal documents as cover to allow him to fly to Moscow despite a direct plea from Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to make an arrest, U.S. officials said.
Snowden's ability to board an Aeroflot flight Sunday to Moscow, despite the revocation of his passport and the warrant for his arrest, was one more move in a series of artful legal and diplomatic maneuvers that have involved China, the Kremlin, WikiLeaks and the Ecuadoran government and kept the 30-year-old outside the grasp of the normally long arm of U.S. justice. It is unclear what other recourse the United States now has.
The Obama administration and politicians on Capitol Hill are likely to be infuriated if Snowden makes it to Ecuador, where he has requested asylum. But the former contractor who worked at an NSA facility in Hawaii until he fled to Hong Kong skillfully placed his fate in the hands of WikiLeaks and countries who nurse their own animosities toward the United States. And Snowden's odyssey is likely to exacerbate already strained relations with China and Russia.
"It is unfortunate that Hong Kong inappropriately failed to take action on our requests of them and permitted a fugitive to simply leave their country in an obvious attempt to escape justice," a senior administration official said Sunday evening. In a statement earlier Sunday, the Hong Kong government said it had been provided "no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving."
It is unclear what options the United States has to persuade other countries on Snowden's itinerary to cooperate.
The United States filed a criminal complaint against Snowden in federal court on June 14, charging him with theft and offenses under the espionage act for turning over documents about top-secret U.S. surveillance programs to The Washington Post and the Guardian. The next day, the United States requested Snowden's detention in Hong Kong on a provisional arrest warrant. The United States issued its own arrest warrant when the complaint was filed in the Eastern District of Virginia.
On June 17, Hong Kong acknowledged receipt of the request, but officials in the Chinese territory did not respond to U.S. inquiries about whether they needed further information, according to a Justice Department spokesperson who provided a timeline of events on the condition of anonymity. Officials in Hong Kong told the United States that the case was under review.
Two days later, Holder placed a phone call to his counterpart, Hong Kong Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen, and stressed the importance of the matter. He urged Hong Kong "to honor our request for Snowden's arrest," the Justice Department spokesperson said.
On Friday, Hong Kong authorities requested more information about the charges, and the United States was in the process of responding when the Justice Department learned that Snowden had left, the spokesperson said.
