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July 30th, 2014 
David Schulberg 
Instead of being hunted and changing countries all his life, Edward Snowden should return to the US and face charges, shared the German Justice Minister, arousing waves of indignant comments from political opponents and human rights activists worldwide.
Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden “surely doesn’t want to
spend the rest of his life being hunted… or wandering from one
[place of] asylum to the next,” said Germany’s Justice
Minister Heiko Maas in an interview (in German) with the DPA news
agency.
Two days before 31-year-old Snowden’s asylum visa to Russia
expires on July 31, Maas advised the former spy to break up the
deal with Moscow and go back home to face US justice.
According to Maas, Snowden’s lawyers had already talked to
American officials, looking into the variants of Snowden’s return
to the US.
“If both sides agree, it would serve Snowden’s purpose,”
Maas said.
Although in May Edward Snowden said himself that he’d “like to go
home” in an interview with Brian Williams, he would hardly do so
after Washington labeled him as traitor and promised to put on trial on high treason charges.
Snowden enjoys wide support among the German opposition parties,
who campaigned for months to invite the whistleblower to
testify before national parliamentary committee investigating US
surveillance practices in Germany.
Edward Snowden did express interest in appearing before the
German NSA inquiry committee, but refused to testify via remote
video connection, insisting that he needs to provide his evidence
in.
Yet so far Snowden has not been allowed to come and bear on the issue
of the NSA surveillance in Germany, because Berlin has an
“arrest request” from the US.
So even despite the ongoing spy scandal over the US recruiting high ranking official in Germany’s
security structures, Berlin cannot guarantee Snowden’s security,
as it remains unclear whether the German authorities would arrest
Snowden upon arrival and deport him to the US anyway.
“We have asked the US government some questions regarding
this, but we haven’t got any answers,” Maas said in an
interview. “We are being cautious and want to know exactly
how Snowden would be treated if he appears for a trial in the
USA.”
Germany’s opposition parties insist the government is applying
insufficient effort to enable Snowden to share his knowledge
about the true scale of the US espionage in the country.
Maas should have arranged for Snowden to face the German NSA
inquiry committee, but “unfortunately he isn’t doing
that,” an MP from Germany’s Greens Party, Konstantin von
Notz, a member of the Germany’s NSA inquiry committee himself,
told Deutsche Welle on Tuesday.
Politician Jan Korte, a member of opposition Left Party, said
that “Whether Snowden is taken in by Germany or not is a
purely political decision.”
In the meantime, German Chancellor Angela Merkel emphasized last
week that Snowden does not fit to the conditions for the granting
of asylum. Still Merkel, who Snowden’s leaks allege has been
under constant American surveillance for years now, remains ‘mad’
over the spy allegations.
According to Deutsche Welle, the Green and the Left parties of
Germany are going to go to court together to force the NSA
investigation committee to question Snowden anyway.
The majority of the NSA investigation committee, largely
consisting of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats and the Social
Democrats coalition partner are against the move.
Edward Snowden’s lawyer has reportedly applied for an extension
of Russian asylum for his client.
Source Article from http://rt.com/news/176592-german-minister-snowden-outrage/
German minister’s ‘give up’ advice to Snowden stirs opposition ire
http://rt.com/news/176592-german-minister-snowden-outrage/
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