The Edward Snowden Affair (18 page)

S
NOWDEN ORIGINALLY BELIEVED
I
CELAND
was his ideal adopted home because of its shared ideals on Internet freedom.
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Though it had an extradition treaty with the U.S., Iceland had never surrendered anyone to America.
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A day after the WikiLeaks team arrived in Hong Kong, Icelandic entrepreneur and head of WikiLeaks partner conglomerate DataCell, Olafur Sigurvinsson, told Channel2 television, “We have a plane and all the logistics in place. Now we are only awaiting a response from the [Icelandic] government.”
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A Gulfstream G550 had been contracted from a Chinese firm at a cost of nearly a quarter-of-a-million dollars. Funds had come from individual donations made to Datacell.
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The only problem is Snowden had not formally sought refuge in Iceland. WikiLeaks and Sigurvinsson had taken it upon themselves to make inquiries on Snowden’s behalf starting June 12.
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Only after he arrived in Russia did he begin submitting asylum requests. His first were to Iceland and Ecuador. Snowden was informed he needed to be on Icelandic soil to apply for asylum.
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Then he requested Icelandic citizenship which, if granted, would supersede the extradition treaty.
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Having previously voiced his preference for Iceland to the media, the U.S. government quietly pressured the U.N. to lobby the island nation. The U.N. sent its secretary general to meet with Icelandic parliament.
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Four days after his citizenship paperwork arrived, only six members of Iceland’s 63-seat legislative body voted in favor of putting the matter on the government’s agenda.
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Even if it had been placed on parliament’s docket, Iceland’s legislature was going on summer vacation and would not reconvene until September.

Assange and WikiLeaks were putting on a good show because sometime between June 12-18 WikiLeaks representative Kristinn Hrafnsson had been informed by Icelandic officials that Snowden would have to apply in person.
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What should have tipped off the U.S. government that something was amiss was that the entire month Snowden was in China, every waking second wasn’t being spent filing asylum requests. Instead he provided more disclosures to the local press and conducted interviews despite American authorities exerting more and more pressure upon Hong Kong and Beijing to detain him. That a plot was afoot is retrospectively obvious because of all of the legal powerhouses working on Snowden’s behalf, it was an apparent surprise to everyone that several countries he would later petition had clearly defined legislation requiring an asylum applicant to apply in person. If Snowden’s concern for safety was genuine—especially since impending felony charges would almost invariably involve passport nullification—as soon as WikiLeaks affirmed it had a working budget of at least $240,000, Snowden would have set to globetrotting as he dropped off asylum requests along the way. Snowden already knew all of this. If he was astute enough to have researched which country would have difficulty extraditing him before coincidentally traveling to another which had no such treaty with the U.S., it is reasonable to assume he also knew which countries would accept his application without his presence. He was playing opossum. Nonetheless, by filing asylum requests Snowden would also delay extradition proceedings until a determination was made with each sanctuary plea. It was now obvious his statement during the live Q & A session that he hadn’t flown directly to Iceland because “Iceland could be pushed harder, quicker, before the public could have a chance to make their feelings known, and I would not put that past the current US administration”
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meant he did not have incriminating evidence against the U.S. government in respect to Iceland. He couldn’t mount popular support as easily. However, being on Icelandic soil, Snowden could prolong extradition proceedings after submitting an asylum request in person.

Snowden didn’t do any of this because he wasn’t worried.

Two days after it learned of his identity, amid global outrage as most every country distanced itself from Snowden for fear of American backlash, Russia made a curious announcement. The Russian president’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, boldly informed the local newspaper
Kommersant
, “If such an appeal [from Snowden] is given, it will be considered.”
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The next day the SCMP interviewed Snowden and asked if he’d been offered Russian asylum. He answered, “My only comment is that I am glad there are governments that refuse to be intimidated by great power.”
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At the time of the interview, Snowden was still mulling over the offer. It is likely he made up his mind on June 20, the day after Harrison arrived in Hong Kong. After the two discussed the matter and came to a decision, a celebratory pre-birthday party was thrown at the apartment he’d taken after leaving the Mira, the same one he would move out of the following day under the veil of night. By this birthday, he was settled into the Russian Embassy, which was located on the 21
^st
floor of a skyscraper.
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Another indication Snowden and Russia had been speaking was that the G20 disclosure was released a week after Russia discovered who he was. As he had done with China, he was endearing himself to his soon-to-be adopted country as he pitted the Soviet government and citizenry against Washington. All that was left to do was to make Snowden’s entry into Russia appear convincing and plausible.

The first step was to find a way to get him to Russia but not make it apparent he was there to stay. The day Hong Kong requested more information from the American government about his case, Snowden was instructed to purchase a ticket from Hong Kong to Havana, Cuba via Moscow on Aeroflot, Russia’s national airline.
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Russia and Snowden now had to wait for his passport to be revoked. Both Russia and Snowden knew China would not detain him. Because he was on a connecting flight, he would be permitted to alight in the geopolitically neutral transit zone at Sheremetyevo International Airport. As a safety precaution and for the sake of appearance, on June 22 he had been issued an Ecuadorian safe pass from the London Embassy. The refugee document allowed “the bearer to travel to the territory of Ecuador for the purpose of political asylum.”
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To make the scenario more believable, Ecuadorian Embassy cars would be sitting at the airport when he arrived.
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Upon landing, he would be “stuck” in Russia. Signs that he never intended to arrive in Cuba were glaring and obvious. It was understood Snowden was flying through Russia to get to Cuba in order to board a flight to Venezuela to gain refuge in Ecuador.

Amid the frenzy, no one seemed to notice the incongruity of Snowden fleeing through one and to another country with American extradition treaties; his having to pass through U.N. and American airspace to reach Cuba; in 2006 Cuba had given assurances to the U.S. that it would not accept “new” American fugitives as a gesture of good faith amid a history of strife between the two nations;
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and in order to apply for asylum in Ecuador, one had to either be standing in the country or file at an Ecuadorian Embassy
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(not one report appeared confirming or denying whether Snowden had filed Ecuadorian asylum paperwork while in Hong Kong). Snowden had no intention of traveling to Cuba. The giveaway should have been that his first stop was in a country which did not have an extradition agreement with the United States.

Despite the suspicious conditions which brought him to Russia, on June 24 journalists piled onto Aeroflot SU150 to Cuba.
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Snowden’s seat, 17A, was vacant.
Kommersant
made sure to mention the flight and seat number a full day prior to departure. It was estimated that a quarter of economy and over half of business class was comprised of reporters. When he failed to appear by takeoff, photojournalists were left with nothing to do over the course of the 12-hour flight but take pictures of the unoccupied seat. As Maxim Shemetov of
Reuters
admitted a day later, “It looked suspicious that everyone knew when and how a top secret target was going to leave Russia.”
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By comparison, passengers on Snowden’s arrival flight could not confirm whether he had been aboard. He and Harrison had been seated separately from the other passengers, were released and greeted on the tarmac by numerous Russian security agents and their baggage was loaded directly from the plane.
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The United States realized it had been duped on Wednesday, June 26, when Spanish-language network Univision displayed Snowden’s Ecuadorian safe passage certificate. It was unsigned.
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The capital had not approved it. It no longer mattered that Snowden had arrived in Russia illegally. He was there and because he was in a transit zone, nothing could be done about it. People demanded to know who was responsible for the invalid document.

In June 2012, Julian Assange entered the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He would be granted asylum two months later but remained stranded at the consulate.
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The WikiLeaks founder would have to step onto English soil in order to board a plane to his adopted country. If he were to do so, he would be immediately arrested. A European arrest warrant had been issued as part of a sexual assault investigation.
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It was here he met local Ecuadorian consul Fidel Narvaez. The diplomat had been assigned to stay in the embassy at night to deter police harassment of Assange. Over time, a bond was forged between the refugee and a person with a known history of social and civil activism. Narvaez had issued Snowden’s travel voucher at Assange’s behest.
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A few days after Snowden had settled into his suite at Sheremetyevo’s V-Express Capsule Hotel, Naraez appeared in Moscow.
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Regardless of who was ultimately responsible for getting Snowden to Russia, everyone had to plead ignorance and innocence.

China released an official statement regarding Snowden’s release: “The US Government earlier on made a request to the HKSAR Government for the issue of a provisional warrant of arrest against Mr. Snowden. Since the documents provided by the US Government did not fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law, the HKSAR Government has requested the US Government to provide additional information so that the Department of Justice could consider whether the US Government’s request can meet the relevant legal conditions. As the HKSAR Government has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving Hong Kong.”
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It made sure to add, “Meanwhile, the HKSAR Government has formally written to the US Government requesting clarification on earlier reports about the hacking of computer systems in Hong Kong by US government agencies. The HKSAR Government will continue to follow up on the matter so as to protect the legal rights of the people of Hong Kong.” Yuen confirmed, “Until the minute of Snowden’s departure, the U.S. government hadn’t yet replied to our requests for clarification.”
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Legal experts later confirmed China had operated within the bounds of law.
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What would appear to be an admission of guilt but a political formality nonetheless, Ecuador’s secretary of political management threatened legal action to whoever was responsible for leaking the illicit document to the press. The statement could be construed as Ecuador not wanting to be seen in the same disorganized light as America when it came to filing official paperwork or vain whitewashing because it hadn’t wanted the existence of the travel pass to be made public. Predictably, by Wednesday Narvaez was apologetic: “I am conscious of my responsibility and I assume it in its totality.” During his regular weekend address to the nation, Ecuador’s president, President Rafael Correa, stated, “If it is [true] that he [Narvaez] went beyond his authority, he will be disciplined accordingly.” But Ecuador had no intention of investigating Narvaez. In an ironic twist, the day after Correa’s announcement, metadata revealed the travel voucher had arrived in the in-box of Ecuador’s secretary of judicial affairs. It was undoubtedly presented to the president’s office.
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America had assumed Ecuador’s waiving trade agreement rights with the U.S. on Thursday was an indication it was intending to grant Snowden asylum. The country’s official statement was that economic privileges should not be contingent upon blackmail. The country was preempting the United States revoking the preferential tariffs granted in the 2002 Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA). Ecuador’s secretary of communications pithily suggested the U.S. should take its $23 million in savings and apply it to human rights education.
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He took the opportunity to add, “Finally, we would enjoy (sic) that the U.S. respond with the same urgency that they are asking of us to deliver Mr. Snowden when he enters Ecuadorian soil, to our requests to the U.S. Embassy in Ecuador, via communication POL 081/2013 that they deliver to us the many fugitives from Ecuadorian justice who are currently living in the United States, particularly the corrupt bankers who knowingly destroyed our economy in 1999, whose extradition has been repeatedly denied by the United States.”
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It was a wonderful show. Only U.S. and Ecuadorian officials knew the trade agreement status was on shaky ground before Snowden came into the picture. Neither party had expected it to be extended in the upcoming weeks.

Two days after Snowden’s arrival, Russian president Vladimir Putin told the press, “It is true that Mr. Snowden arrived in Moscow, which was completely unexpected for us.”
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He added, “As for his possible extradition, we can extradite foreign nationals only to those countries with which we have relevant international agreements on the extradition of criminals. We have no such agreement with the United States. Mr. Snowden has committed no crimes in the Russian Federation.” During a press conference five days later, Putin stated, “Russia never gives anyone up and doesn’t plan to give anyone up and no one has ever given us anyone” atop “[ … ] [Snowden] is essentially a fighter for human rights, and for democracy.”
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