U.S. pens letter to Russia promising protections for Snowden

 
Former U.S. security contractor Edward Snowden would not face the death penalty or be tortured and would have all the protections of the U.S. civilian court system if he were sent home, the chief U.S. prosecutor wrote in a letter to his Russian counterpart this week.
   
In the letter dated July 23 and released on Friday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder wrote that he sought to dispel claims about what would happen to Snowden if Russia handed him over to face charges of illegally disclosing government secrets about surveillance programs.

Meanwhile, Germany's president, who helped expose the workings of East Germany's dreaded Stasi secret police, said whistle blowers like U.S. fugitive Edward Snowden deserved respect for defending freedom.

Weighing in on a debate that could influence September's federal election, President Joachim Gauck struck a very different tone from that of Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has assured Washington that Berlin would not shelter Snowden.

Gauck, who has little power but great moral authority, said people who work for the state were entitled to act according to their conscience, as institutions sometimes depart from the law.

"This will normally only be put right if information is made public. Whoever draws the public's attention to it and acts out of conscience deserves respect," he told Friday's Passauer Neue Presse newspaper.
 
This comes as spokesman of  Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the latter is determined not to allow a dispute over former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden to harm Moscow's ties with Washington.       

"The head of state has expressed strong determination not to allow this," Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "I have no doubt that this will be the case, no matter how the situation develops."                                 

The spokesman added that Russia's FSB federal security agency and its U.S. counterpart, the FBI, are in talks over the fate of former U.S. spy agency contractor Snowden, who is stuck at a Moscow airport.                          

Peskov highlighted that the Kremlin was not involved in talks over the 30-year-old American, who is wanted by the United States on espionage charges.  


REUTERS