MCLC: HK likely to extradite leaker

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: HK likely to extradite leaker
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (6/10/13):
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/world/asia/edward-snowden-hong-kong-extra
dition.html

Hong Kong Seen as Likely to Extradite Leaker if U.S. Asks
By KEITH BRADSHER

HONG KONG — In choosing Hong Kong as an initial place to take refuge from
the United States government, the National Security Agency contractor who
has acknowledged leaking documents has selected a jurisdiction where it
may be possible to delay extradition but not avoid it, legal and law
enforcement experts here said.

The contractor, Edward J. Snowden, was apparently still in Hong Kong at
12:30 p.m. Monday. The Mira Hotel, an elegant boutique hotel on the
Kowloon side of Victoria Harbor, said Monday evening that he had stayed at
the hotel but checked out at that time.

It was not clear whether Mr. Snowden remained in Hong Kong or left the
territory, which is part of China but has a high degree of autonomy. The
hotel gave no further information, and the Hong Kong government declined
to discuss Mr. Snowden’s whereabouts, citing a policy of not commenting on
individual cases.

“All cases will be handled in accordance with the laws of Hong Kong,” the
government said in a brief statement.

The United States Consulate in Hong Kong referred questions to the Justice
Department in Washington, which has said only that it is in the initial
stages of an investigation into the release of information about
government programs to monitor telephone and Internet communications.

The Obama administration has said the programs were focused on the
communications of people who were not American citizens. But Mr. Snowden
asserted in a video interview, released by the Guardian newspaper of
Britain on Sunday, that the scale of the surveillance was much broader and
involved the recording of a vast array of communications in the United
States and elsewhere.

Hong Kong was a British colony before its return to Chinese sovereignty in
1997, and it still follows the legal system it inherited from the British,
with broad protections for civil liberties. Mr. Snowden told The Guardian
that he had fled here because “they have a spirited commitment to free
speech and the right of political dissent.”

But Hong Kong won that reputation mainly as a place where Chinese
political dissidents sought refuge from mainland authorities, not people
sought by other governments. The Hong Kong authorities have worked closely
with law enforcement agencies in the United States for years and have
usually accepted requests for extradition under longstanding bilateral
agreements, according to Regina Ip, a former secretary of security who is
now a member of the territory’s legislature.

“He won’t find Hong Kong a safe harbor,” Ms. Ip said. “Those agreements
have been enforced for more than 10 years. If the U.S. submits a request,
we would act in accordance with the law.”

Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who is based in
Hong Kong, wondered why Mr. Snowden would have considered the territory a
good place to stay after he left Hawaii three weeks ago.

“If he took time to talk with a lawyer, he would have decided somewhere
else was a better prospect” to avoid extradition, Mr. Bequelin said. “His
explanation of his choice of Hong Kong was a bit off.”

The Hong Kong Police Force would not arrest him unless he broke a Hong
Kong law or the United States issued an Interpol notice or sent a warrant,
said Stephen Vickers, a former head of the force’s intelligence division
who now runs his own risk consulting firm. But he said the police probably
began monitoring Mr. Snowden as soon as word spread that he had taken
responsibility for the leaks.

The Hong Kong authorities have generally been willing to extradite
suspects when the United States sends a warrant, said Jonathan Acton-Bond,
a barrister and former magistrate who has represented clients in some of
the best-known extradition cases here.

Hong Kong enforces extradition laws more than other jurisdictions in
Southeast Asia, Mr. Acton-Bond said. But Hong Kong did not follow
Britain’s example after the Sept. 11 attacks of lowering the standard of
legal evidence required before approving extradition to the United States.
Hong Kong also has legal protections against politically motivated
extradition cases, but they have seldom been invoked.

In the video interview
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward
-snowden-interview-video> with The Guardian, Mr. Snowden said he was
considering seeking refuge in Iceland because of that country’s history of
protecting Internet freedom. Hong Kong journalists identified the room
where the video was recorded as being in the W hotel in Kowloon, near a
station of the city’s airport express train. They found journalists for
The Guardian checking out of that hotel at lunchtime on Monday.

Mr. Snowden referred in the video to a Central Intelligence Agency station
as being “just up the road in the consulate here in Hong Kong” and pointed
out the window, whose curtains were drawn. But the hotel is actually
across the harbor from the consulate.

Mr. Snowden’s decision to go to Hong Kong introduces a potential
complication in Chinese-American relations less than two days after
President Obama and President Xi Jinping met in California for a series of
wide-ranging discussions. Hong Kong is one of the largest hubs for China’s
intelligence agencies, which are widely believed to occupy several floors
of a black-glass building in the center of the city.

Mr. Snowden, a 29-year-old computer technician, has said that he had
access to lists of all American agents overseas and other information, but
that he did not take all of the data. The Washington Post has reported
that he gave the newspaper 41 slides from a PowerPoint presentation. After
discussing the national security implications of the material with
American officials, the newspaper decided to publish only four of them.

While Mr. Snowden — or possibly his personal computer — might be a
valuable prize for China’s intelligence agencies, experts were skeptical
that China would risk harming relations with the United States by
exercising its legal authority to block an extradition request from the
Justice Department.

“I don’t think he’s a big enough fish that Beijing would try to intervene
to affect the decision of the Hong Kong authorities one way or the other,”
said Willy Lam, a specialist in Chinese government decision-making at the
Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The most celebrated extradition case here in recent years involved two
Pakistanis and an American who were accused of trying to exchange heroin
and hashish for Stinger antiaircraft missiles in 2002. They were arrested
by Hong Kong police officers working with undercover F.B.I. agents, who
were pretending to be selling the missiles. The authorities said the men
were planning to give the missiles to Al Qaeda.

The men initially fought extradition, but agreed
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/06/international/06CND_HONG.html> to it
after three months in a Hong Kong jail. Their lawyer, Mr. Acton-Bond,
complained that they were kept in solitary confinement for 16 hours a day,
housed separately in cells with no other Urdu speakers, and were
“compelled to watch Chinese-language television.”

All three later pleaded guilty in a San Diego courtroom and received
prison terms of up to 18 years.