BBC News, 8
July 2013
The US applied for a warrant for the arrest of Edward Snowden if he landed in the Irish Republic |
The High
Court ruled that American security chiefs failed to show where alleged crimes
had been committed by the former intelligence contractor.
The US
applied for a provisional arrest warrant on Friday through its embassy.
Officials
made the move after former spy Mr Snowden contacted 21 countries, including
Ireland, seeking asylum.
There were
concerns the fugitive intelligence officer, who has been living in the transit
section of Moscow's Sheremetyevo-2 airport, would pass through Shannon airport
on his way to South America.
A request
for asylum in the Irish Republic can only be considered if Snowden makes an
application on arrival in the country.
Limbo
Judge Colm
Mac Eochaidh refused the request for an arrest warrant on the grounds that no
information had been given by the US authorities about where the alleged
offences took place.
The ruling
also stated that the decision was taken because the US failed to show where the
theft of government property took place or what had been stolen.
Judge Mac
Eochaidh said offences may relate to theft of information and its misuse rather
than to physical property but that assumptions could not be made that it took
place in Hawaii.
Justice
Minister Alan Shatter said there is nothing to prevent the US making a second
application to the courts in Dublin on Mr Snowden.
"The
determination of the court does not in any way prevent a fresh application
being made for a provisional arrest warrant, taking into account the findings
of the court," he said.
Mr Shatter
said Irish and US authorities have remained in close contact about the former
intelligence contractor's status and he said that the Irish government will
take any action open to it to ensure that its obligations regarding extradition
are met.
"It
should be noted that what the court in its judgment today addressed was the
issuing of an arrest warrant on the basis of specific information, rather than
a determination as to whether an individual should or should not be
extradited," he said.
Former NSA
analyst Mr Snowden has requested asylum across the world, in Austria, Bolivia,
Brazil, China, Cuba, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Ireland, the
Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Poland, Spain, Switzerland and Venezuela.
He is
wanted for leaking details of secret surveillance operations in the UK and US
and has been in limbo since his arrival in Moscow from Hong Kong on 23 June.
Russian
president Vladimir Putin said Mr Snowden would have to stop leaking US secrets
if he wanted to get asylum there.
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