Responding to Washington's outrage over Edward Snowden's flight to Moscow, Hong Kong said the U.S. government had got Snowden's middle name wrong in the arrest documents sent to the Hong Kong administration.
Snowden had been hiding in Hong Kong for several weeks after disclosing the U.S. National Security Agency's surveillance programs of monitoring communications and movements of people in the country. However, last Sunday he flew to Moscow following the arrest request from the U.S. government to the Hong Kong authorities.
Hong Kong Justice Secretary Rimsky Yuen blamed the U.S. authorities for failing to issue a precise arrest warrant, according to the Associated Press.
The justice secretary said the Washington government not only got Snowden's middle name wrong but failed to provide the American whistleblower's passport number as well.
Edward Snowden's middle name is written as Joseph in Hong Kong immigration records whereas Washington used the name James in some documents and referred to him only as Edward J. Snowden in others, according to the justice secretary.
"These three names are not exactly the same, therefore we believed that there was a need to clarify," said Rimsky Yuen.
However, the U.S. justice department Wednesday denied this discrepancy saying Washington had provided everything necessary required to extradite him back to the U.S.
"The fugitive's photos and videos were widely reported through multiple news outlets. That Hong Kong would ask for more information about his identity demonstrates that it was simply trying to create a pretext for not acting on the provisional arrest request," AP quoted a spokeswoman at the U.S. justice department as saying.
Snowden is currently in the transit zone in a Moscow airport awaiting Ecuador's response to his asylum request.
