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January 27, 2014

A portrait of former US spy agency contractor, Edward Snowden is displayed behind a screen as he answers users' questions on Twitter in this photo illustration in Sarajevo, January 23, 2014. Reuters pic, January 27, 2014. Former US National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden told German TV yesterday about reports that US government officials want to assassinate him for leaking secret documents about the NSA's collection of telephone records and emails.

In what German public broadcaster ARD said was Snowden's first television interview, Snowden also said he believes the NSA has monitored other top German government officials along with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Snowden told ARD that he felt there are 'significant threats' to his life but he said that he nevertheless sleeps well because he believes he did the right thing by informing the public about the NSA's activities.

"I'm still alive and don't lose sleep for what I did because it was the right thing to do," said Snowden at the start of what ARD said was a six-hour interview that was filmed in a Moscow hotel suite.

ARD aired 40 minutes of the six-hour interview.

"These people, and they are government officials, have said they would love to put a bullet in my head or poison me when I come out of the supermarket and then watch me die in the shower," Snowden said.

Questions about US government spying on civilians and foreign officials became heated last June when Snowden leaked documents outlining the widespread collection of telephone records and email.

Snowden was granted asylum in Russia last summer after fleeing the United States, where he is wanted on espionage charges for leaking information about government surveillance practices.

The revelations shocked Germany, a country especially sensitive after the abuses by the Gestapo during the Nazi reign and the Stasi in Communist East Germany during the Cold War.

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