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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Justice, Mr Rimsky Yuen, SC, who spoke to the media on the Snowden case today (June 25):
Reporter: The US Government said it was a deliberate choice by the Hong Kong Government to let Mr Snowden leave Hong Kong because the Government was not honouring the extradition request and the arrest warrant. Was that the case?
Secretary for Justice: As I explained earlier, with the chronology which I have given, the answer to your question is "no". We have been acting fully in accordance with the law in Hong Kong, particularly the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance (Chapter 503) as well as the agreement made between Hong Kong and the United States in 1996. We have been keeping in touch with the US authorities. We notified them through emails initially that we would be studying the case and that we would need further information, and I reiterated the same stance with the US Department of Justice on the 20th of June. Then on the 21st of June, we actually sent them a list of questions which I have outlined earlier, which identified the areas of substantive issues, both in relation to the charges, in relation to the question of whether they can actually satisfy the dual criminality requirement under Hong Kong law, as well as the question of evidential issues, and other questions I outlined earlier, i.e. details which helped to identify exactly which is the person, such as the name and the passport number. So I think I can tell you in no uncertain terms that we have not been deliberately delaying the progress. All along we acted fully in accordance with the law and any suggestion that we have been deliberately letting Mr Snowden go away or to do any other things to obstruct the normal operation is totally untrue.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Issued at HKT 21:32
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