Edward Snowden, the former US National Security Agency contractor living in Russia after leaking information about the US government’s mass surveillance program, has said he would like to return home if he can get a fair trial.
Snowden, who faces espionage charges that could send him to prison for decades, stated his desire to return to the US in an interview with CBS This Morning broadcast on Monday.
“I would like to return to the United States,” said Snowden, whose memoir, Permanent Record, was to go on sale yesterday. “That is the ultimate goal.”
“But if I’m gonna spend the rest of my life in prison, the one bottom-line demand that we have to agree to is that at least I get a fair trial,” he said. “And that is the one thing the government has refused to guarantee, because they won’t provide access to what’s called a ‘public interest defense.’”
Snowden has been living in Russia since leaking thousands of classified documents to the press in 2013 that revealed the scope of US government surveillance after Sept. 11, 2001.
Praised as a whistle-blower and a privacy advocate by his defenders, the US accuses Snowden of endangering national security and filed charges against him under the Espionage Act.
Speaking to CBS, Snowden said that he was “not asking for a parade.”
“I’m not asking for a pardon. I’m not asking for a pass,” he said. “What I’m asking for is a fair trial.”
“This is the bottom line that any American should require,” he said. “We don’t want people thrown in prison without the jury being able to decide that what they did was right or wrong.”
“The government wants to have a different kind of trial,” he added. “They want to use special procedures, they want to be able to close the courtroom, they want the public not to be able to go, know what’s going on.”
“They do not want the jury to be able to consider the motivations — why I did what I did,” Snowden said. “Was it better for the United States? Did it benefit us or did it cause harm? They don’t want the jury to consider that at all.”
“They want the jury strictly to consider whether these actions were lawful or unlawful, not whether they were right or wrong,” Snowden said. “And I’m sorry, but that defeats the purpose of a jury trial.”
Snowden also said that he would love France to grant him political asylum after French Minister of Justice Nicole Belloubet said if it was up to her she would make an offer, although she made clear she was speaking in a personal capacity.
Asked about the prospect of asylum in France in an interview aired on Monday on France Inter radio, Snowden said: “I applied for asylum in France in 2013 under [former French president Francois] Hollande and, of course, we would love to see [French President Emmanuel] Macron roll out an invitation.”
A French diplomatic source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that there had been no change since Snowden’s 2013 asylum request was rejected.
“There are no new facts which would justify a different decision,” the source said.
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