US slaps anti-spy charges on whistle-blower Snowden

US authorities have filed espionage charges against former intelligence technician Edward Snowden, who blew the whistle on America's massive programme to collect vast amounts of telephone and internet data from private users around the world.

The US authorities have asked authorities in Hong Kong, where Snowden is reportedly holed up, to detain him.

Confirming an earlier report in the Washington Post, a US official told AFP on Friday that a sealed criminal complaint has been lodged with a federal court in the US state of Virginia and a provisional arrest warrant has been issued.

All eyes will now be on Hong Kong and Beijing to see whether they will comply with the provisional warrant and hold Snowden.

Hong Kong officials remained tight-lipped today as to whether Snowden had been approached by the law enforcement authorities or was still a free man.

Police commissioner Andy Tsang told reporters it was "inconvenient" to disclose details of the case. Tsang insisted any extradition request "has to go through… relevant institutions and also the courts for it to be handled" in the former British colony.

Snowden is charged with espionage, theft and "conversion of government property", or the criminal misuse of government property.

His employer, Booz Allen Hamilton, a private company that seconded him to work as a contractor for the secretive US National Security Agency (NSA) in Hawaii, is based in Virginia and prosecutors there often handle security cases.

The 29-year-old technician fled Hawaii on 20 May and flew on to Hong Kong, from where he proceeded to leak details of secret US intelligence programmes to international media outlets, particularly the The Guardian.

The leaks embarrassed US President Barack Obama's administration, which was forced to defend US intelligence agencies' snooping practices.

Hong Kong is a semi-autonomous territory with its own legal system and a provision for granting political asylum, but it is subordinate to China in foreign policy matters and has an extradition treaty with Washington.

Snowden has told The Guardian he might seek asylum in Iceland, which has strong internet freedom laws, but he is thought to still be in Hong Kong and might now find it difficult to travel.

On Thursday, an Icelandic businessman connected to the activist website WikiLeaks said he was ready to fly Snowden out of Hong Kong and to safety in Iceland on a chartered jet.

But Olafur Sigurvinsson, head of WikiLeaks' partner firm DataCell, said Snowden would probably not travel unless he received assurances from Reykjavik he would be protected from extradition.