Edward Snowden should cut deal and go home to US, German minister says

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Photo: Getty

Los Angeles Times: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is too young to spend his life dodging extradition in remote foreign locales, Germany's justice minister said on Tuesday in advising the fugitive to return to the United States and face the charges against him.

Mr Snowden's grant of political asylum in Russia expires on Thursday, and although Moscow authorities may approve the extension he requested this month, the 31-year-old "surely doesn't want to spend the rest of his life being hunted," Justice Minister Heiko Maas said in an interview with the news agency dpa.

Mr Snowden, who is wanted on US espionage and theft charges, has been living in obscurity in Russia since being granted a one-year term of temporary asylum on August 1, 2013. The former National Security Agency contractor absconded with millions of classified documents on his laptops when he fled his job in Hawaii last year.

German justice minister Heiko Maas believes ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden should cut a deal with the US government and return to US. Photo: AP

The data analyst first turned up in Hong Kong, where he revealed what he considered excessive intrusion on private communications in the NSA's counterterrorism surveillance. He then flew to Moscow with the intent to travel on to Latin America and claim political asylum, but was thwarted when the US government canceled his passport during the flight from Hong Kong.

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Mr Snowden was holed up at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport for more than a month last summer before Russian President Vladimir Putin granted him asylum on condition he not use his Russian refuge to further expose US intelligence secrets.

German opposition politicians have been campaigning for months to bring Mr Snowden from Russia to Berlin to testify before a parliamentary committee investigating US surveillance practices involving Germans' private communications.

The governing coalition headed by Chancellor Angela Merkel has rejected the notion of Mr Snowden going to Berlin to testify, citing concern that Germany would be obliged to honour a US extradition request. And granting political asylum to the fugitive wanted by Washington on felony charges could damage relations between the Western allies.

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Edward Snowden should cut deal and go home to US, German minister says