Kerry tells Snowden to ‘man up’ and come back to US
Kerry’s comments came shortly before US network NBC aired the entire interview Wednesday night with the former National Security Agency (NSA) leaker who is living in Russia, where he has been granted temporary asylum.
“I don't think there's ever been any question that I'd like to go home,'' Snowden told NBC’s Brian Williams in comments that were teased on the network in the lead-up to the Wednesday night broadcast.
"From day one, I said I'm doing this to serve my country. Whether amnesty or clemency is a possibility, that's for the public to decide," said Snowden in his first interview with US television since the scandal broke in early June last year.
But Kerry hit back, saying Snowden should do the patriotic thing and return to the US to face justice.
"This is a man who has betrayed his country," Kerry told CBS News. "He should man up and come back to the US."
When questioned about Snowden’s justification that he had done his patriotic duty by revealing the extent of the NSA’s leaks, Kerry replied, “let him come back and make his case. If he cares so much about America and he believes in America, he should trust the American system of justice.''
Snowden had been working as a technician for Booz Allen, a government contractor for the NSA, before he left the US in May 2013.
But in his interview with NBC, Snowden suggested that he had a larger role in US intelligence than the government has acknowledged.
“I was trained as a spy in sort of the traditional sense of the word, in that I lived and worked undercover overseas,'' he said.
‘That’s a pretty dumb answer’
Almost a year since he fed a trove of secret NSA documents to the media, including the Washington Post and the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald, Snowden said Russia was not his initial destination.
"The reality is, I never intended to end up in Russia," he said in the interview recorded clandestinely last week in Moscow.
"I had a flight booked to Cuba onwards to Latin America and I was stopped because the United States government decided to revoke my passport and trap me in Moscow Airport," Snowden told NBC.
"So when people ask, 'Why are you in Russia?' I say, please, ask the State Department."
Snowden was granted asylum by Russia in August 2013 after spending weeks holed up in Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport after flying in from Hong Kong.
Kerry however denied that the State Department had trapped Snowden in Moscow, saying "for a supposedly smart guy, that's a pretty dumb answer, frankly."
The temporary asylum expires on August 1 and Snowden said "if the asylum looks like it's going to run out, then, of course, I would apply for an extension.”
(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP)
