The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man (23 page)

For years, Washington had complained bitterly about Beijing’s industrial-scale stealing and spying in cyberspace. In numerous documents GCHQ and NSA identify China and Russia as the two nations responsible for most cyber-espionage. Now it appeared the NSA did the same thing, only worse.

Snowden must have hoped that in the wake of his leaks the Hong Kong government would treat his case sympathetically. After Ho’s approach to the authorities, an intermediary contacted Snowden. The intermediary delivered a message. The message was that Hong Kong’s judiciary was independent. And, yes, it was possible he would spend time in jail. But – and this was the crucial bit – it also said the government would welcome his departure.

Ho sought further assurances. He told the
Guardian
’s Beijing correspondent Tania Branigan, who had flown to Hong Kong: ‘I talked to government officials seeking verification of whether they really wanted him to go, and in case they really wanted him to go, whether he would be given safe passage.’

On Friday 21 June the US government formally indicted Snowden with espionage. It sent an urgent official extradition request. ‘If Hong Kong doesn’t act soon, it will complicate our bilateral relations and raise questions about Hong Kong’s commitment to the rule of law,’ a senior Obama administration official said.

With his legal options shrinking by the hour, Snowden made a fateful decision. He would leave.

Six thousand miles away, someone else in hiding had been taking a close interest in these developments. Julian Assange had been frantically trying to make contact with the fugitive NSA contractor. Assange is the self-styled editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks. He had been holed up in the tiny Ecuadorean embassy in London for over a year.

Assange had taken refuge inside the apartment building – Flat 3b, 3 Hans Crescent – after his own legal options ran out. In summer 2012, Britain’s supreme court ruled that an extradition warrant served by authorities in Sweden was valid. Assange should be extradited to answer complaints from August 2010 that he sexually assaulted two Swedish women, the court said.

Assange promptly walked into the embassy and was granted political asylum by Ecuador’s leftist government. The tactic seemed extravagant to some. During the cold war, Hungary’s dissident Cardinal Mindszenty spent 15 years in the US embassy. But this was 2012, not 1956. There were few signs of state brutality amid the penthouses of London’s Knightsbridge; instead of Soviet tanks there were Bentleys and Ferraris. Thanks to his going to ground in this way, WikiLeaks had released little of significance for some time. Assange, as the
New York Times
’s David Carr put it, ‘looked like a forgotten man’.

Now, Assange barged his way into Snowden’s drama. Much is mysterious. But it is known his approaches came via intermediaries and through his Hong Kong lawyers.
These pre-dated Snowden’s video confession, and they grew more intense after it.

From Assange’s perspective the approach was logical. Snowden was another anti-US whistleblower in trouble, apparently just like him. In 2010, Assange had leaked the thousands of classified documents obtained from the US private Chelsea Manning. Their publication, in collaboration with the
Guardian
and other newspapers, had caused a global furore. Manning was jailed and a grand jury reportedly investigated Assange over the leaks. Assange’s woes with Swedish women were a separate matter, though the former hacker would frequently – and some would say cynically – confuse the two. But Assange did have some claim to specialised expertise in asylum issues. And the Snowden story also opened up a chance for him to step back into the limelight.

Ideologically, the two had much in common: a passionate commitment to the internet and transparency, a libertarian philosophy when it came to information, and strong digital defence skills. Snowden had at one point considered leaking his NSA files to Assange. He later reconsidered on the grounds of risk. Assange’s confined situation at the embassy in London, right under the nose of the British authorities and their NSA allies, meant inevitably that he was bugged and constantly monitored.

In terms of temperament, Snowden was nothing like Assange. He was shy, allergic to cameras, and reluctant to become the focus of media attention. He never sought celebrity. The world of journalism was utterly alien to him. Assange was the polar opposite. He liked the public
gaze. Charming, he was capable of deadpan humour and wit, but could also be waspish, flying into recrimination and anger. Assange’s mercurial temperament spawned both groupies and ill-wishers: his supporters saw him as a radical paladin fighting state secrecy, his enemies as an insufferable narcissist.

Assange hatched a plan with two key elements. The first was to secure the same sort of asylum for Snowden as he had himself, from Ecuador’s populist president Rafael Correa, one of a string of leftist Latin American leaders unfriendly to US power. The second was to help get Snowden physically from Hong Kong to Quito. This was no easy thing, given that the CIA and practically every other intelligence agency on the planet were on his trail.

Assange began personal discussions with his friend Fidel Narvaez, Ecuador’s London consul. The two had become close. The goal was to secure Snowden some kind of official paper – a temporary travel document, or better still a diplomatic passport, that would speed him to the cool and grey Andes. Eventually, Assange dispatched his sometime girlfriend Sarah Harrison to Hong Kong, carrying safe-conduct papers for Ecuador signed by Narvaez. A 31-year-old would-be journalist and WikiLeaks activist, Harrison was thoroughly loyal.

Snowden’s first choice for exile had always been Iceland. He believed the island had some of the most progressive media laws in the world. But reaching Reykjavik from Hong Kong would require passage through the US, or through European states which might arrest him on the US warrant. Ecuador, on the
other hand, could safely be reached via Cuba and Venezuela, who were unlikely to obey US instructions.

Unfortunately, the trip also apparently required transit through Russia.

Whose idea was it for Snowden to go to Moscow? This is the million-rouble question. Tibbo, Snowden’s lawyer, won’t answer. He says merely that the situation was ‘complicated’. Harrison says she and Snowden wanted to avoid flying over western Europe. Most connections also involved changing planes in the US, clearly not an option. Snowden’s itinerary does, however, seem to bear the fingerprints of Julian Assange.

Assange was often quick to criticise the US and other western nations when they abused human rights. But he was reluctant to speak out against governments that supported his personal efforts to avoid extradition. This was especially true of Russia. US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks paint a dismal portrait of Russia under Vladimir Putin. They suggest that the Kremlin, its powerful spy agencies and organised crime have grown practically indistinguishable, with Russia in effect a ‘virtual mafia state’.

And yet in 2011 Assange signed a lucrative TV deal with Russia Today (RT), Putin’s English-language global propaganda channel. The channel’s mission is to accuse the west of hypocrisy while staying mute about Russia’s own failings. The fate of Russia’s own whistleblowers was grimly evident. The list of Russian opposition journalists killed in murky circumstances is a long one. It includes the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya (shot dead in
2006) and the human rights activist Natalia Estemirova (abducted in Grozny in 2009 and murdered).

Assange’s view of the world was essentially self-regarding and Manichaean, with countries divided up into those that supported him (Russia, Ecuador, Latin America generally) and those that didn’t (the US, Sweden and the UK). As Jemima Khan, one of many demoralised former WikiLeaks supporters, put it: ‘The problem with Camp Assange is that, in the words of George W Bush, it sees the world as being “with us or against us”.’

On Sunday 23 June 2013, Snowden’s lanky figure, wearing a grey shirt and carrying a backpack, arrived at Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok airport. With him was the young WikiLeaks worker, Sarah Harrison. It was a hot and humid morning. The pair were nervous. They checked in at the Aeroflot counter for flight SU213 to Moscow, and made their way through normal departure channels. Snowden was holding the safe-conduct pass issued by Narvaez, Assange’s friend, and couriered to him by Harrison. Several plain-clothes Chinese officials observed them closely. For any CIA officers watching, this departure must have been exasperating.

In theory, Snowden’s audacious exit should have been impossible. The previous day US authorities had annulled Snowden’s US passport. They had also faxed over extradition papers to the Hong Kong authorities, demanding his immediate arrest. But Hong Kong claimed that there were ‘irregularities’ in the American
paperwork, and they were powerless to halt Snowden’s departure until the errors were rectified.

Shortly afterwards, some 40,000 feet in the air, Snowden and his companion tucked into the first of their two airline hot meals. Aeroflot was working hard to overcome its past Soviet reputation for non-existent customer service. On the ground was a scene of international mayhem, as American officials discovered that Snowden had escaped the net and was en route to Moscow. The bastard had got away! For the world’s greatest superpower, Hong Kong’s not-very-plausible legalistic explanation was humiliating stuff. Not only had Snowden vamoosed, but he now appeared to be heading straight into the embrace of Washington’s adversaries – Russia, Cuba, Venezuela!

Capitol Hill made little secret of its rage. ‘Every one of those nations is hostile to the United States,’ Mike Rogers, chair of the House intelligence committee, fumed. ‘The US government must exhaust all legal options to get him back. When you think about what he says he wants and what his actions are, it defies logic.’ Democrat senator Charles Schumer was equally scathing: ‘Vladimir Putin always seems eager to stick a finger in the eye of the United States, whether it is Syria, Iran and now, of course, with Snowden.’

General Keith Alexander, the NSA’s director and Snowden’s former boss, was no happier: ‘[Snowden] is clearly an individual who’s betrayed the trust and confidence we had in him. This is an individual who is not acting, in my opinion, with noble intent.’

The Chinese, however, were unapologetic. By way of reply the official Xinhua news agency lambasted the US for its ‘hypocritical’ spying: ‘The United States, which has long been trying to play innocent as a victim of cyber-attacks, has turned out to be the biggest villain of our age.’

With Snowden safely on board the Airbus A330-300, Assange put out a statement. He claimed personal credit for the entire rescue operation. He said WikiLeaks had paid for Snowden’s ticket. While in Hong Kong, the organisation had also given Snowden legal advice. Assange would subsequently liken his role, in an interview with the
South China Morning Post
, to that of a ‘people smuggler’.

Proprietorially claiming Snowden as the latest star player for Team WikiLeaks, the statement said: ‘Mr Edward Snowden, the American whistleblower who exposed evidence of a global surveillance regime conducted by US and UK intelligence agencies, has left Hong Kong legally. He is bound for a democratic nation via a safe route for the purposes of asylum, and is being escorted by diplomats and legal advisers from WikiLeaks.’

Moscow journalists dumped their Sunday leisure plans and scrambled to Terminal F of Sheremetyevo International Airport, where Snowden was due to transit. The airport was named after Russia’s most celebrated aristocratic dynasty, the Sheremetevs. The Sheremetevs served numerous tsars, grew fabulously rich, and built two Moscow palaces, Ostankino and Kuskovo. Count Nikolai Sheremetev fell in love with and secretly married his former serf, Praskovya. The romance had spawned a thousand cultural histories.

A large scrum of Russian and international correspondents gathered in front of a small door. It was from here that arriving passengers would emerge; the cleverer reporters had brought pictures of Snowden to show his fellow travellers from Hong Kong.

Plain-clothes Russian agents also trawled the terminal, deflecting questions about which state agency they represented by pretending to be businessmen from Munich and journalists from state-run NTV. A Venezuelan contingent was also said to be there, fuelling speculation that Caracas could be Snowden’s eventual destination. Ecuador’s ambassador turned up, arriving at the airport in his 7-series BMW. He appeared lost as he wandered around the terminal, asking one group of journalists: ‘Do you know where he is? Is he coming here?’ A reporter replied: ‘We thought you did.’

When the plane landed in Moscow at 5pm local time, Russian security vehicles were waiting. From Vietnam, Ecuador’s foreign minister Ricardo Patino tweeted that Snowden had sought political asylum in his country. But where was he? The news agency Interfax announced that Snowden was booked on an Aeroflot flight to Cuba the following day. He appeared to be holed up in Moscow’s transit zone. An Aeroflot source claimed – wrongly, it would turn out – he was staying in a small overnight hotel ‘capsule’ room in Terminal E.

What did the Kremlin know of Snowden’s arrival? President Putin claimed that he was informed of Snowden’s presence on a Moscow-bound flight just two hours before he landed. He observed that by cancelling his passport
the Americans had made an elementary mistake in tradecraft, making his onward flight options impossible.

In characteristic fashion, mixing sarcasm and scarcely sincere ruefulness, Putin labelled Snowden ‘an unwanted Christmas present’. The Russian authorities did seem to have been genuinely surprised by Snowden’s eventual stranding in Russia. The normally reliable
Kommersant
newspaper, however, would claim that Snowden had secretly spent two days at the Russian consulate in Hong Kong. Snowden himself vehemently denies this.

Putin’s own attitude towards whistleblowing activities was undoubtedly negative. He later described Snowden as a
stranniy paren –
a strange bloke. ‘In effect, he condemned himself to a rather difficult life. I do not have the faintest idea what he will do next,’ he said.