Speaking at a news conference in Vietnam on Monday, Ecuador's foreign minister, Ricardo Patiño, said that his government was considering a written request for asylum from Edward J. Snowden, the former national security contractor accused of espionage by the United States.
In remarks the foreign ministry streamed live from Hanoi, Mr. Patiño suggested that Mr. Snowden “is being persecuted†for revea ling the vast scale of the National Security Agency's surveillance of electronic communications worldwide. “The word treason has been batted around in recent days,†Mr. Patiño said, “we need to ask who has betrayed who?â€
Here, based on a simultaneous translation from Spanish to English broadcast by the BBC, are excerpts from the letter Mr. Snowden sent to President Rafael Correa, as read aloud by Mr. Patiño:
I, Edward Snowden, citizen of the United States of America, am writing to request asylum in the Republic of Ecuador because of the risk of being persecuted by the government of the United States and its agents in relation to my decision to make public serious violations on the part of the government of the United States of its Constitution, specifically of its Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and of various treaties of the United Nations that are binding on my country.
As a result of my political opinions, and my desire to exercise my freedom of speech, through which I've shown that the government of the United States is intercepting the majority of communications in the world, the government of the United States has publicly announced a criminal investigation against me. Also, prominent members of Congress and others in the media have accused me of being a traitor and have called for me to be jailed or executed as a result of having communicated this information to the public.
Some of the charges that have been presented against me by the Justice Department of the United States are connected to the 1917 Espionage Act, one of which includes life in prison among the possible sentences.
According to Mr. Patiño, Mr. Snowden also made reference to the fact that charges were filed against him by Justice Department officials in the Eastern District of Virginia, in Alexandria, close to the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency, which is “the same district that has been conducting the Justice Department investigation against Wikileaks.†Mr. Snowden's letter continued:
Ecuador granted asylum to the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, in relation to this investigation. My case is also very similar to that of the American soldier Bradley Manning, who made public government information through Wikileaks revealing war crimes, was arrested by the United States government and has been treated inhumanely during his time in prison. He was put in solitary confinement before his trial and the U.N. anti-torture representative judged that Mr. Manning was submitted to cruel and inhumane acts by the United States government.
The trial against Bradley Manning is ongoing now, and secret documents have been presented to the court and secret witnesses have testified.
I believe that, given these circumstances, it is unlikely that I would receive a fair trial or proper treatment prior to that trial, and face the possibility of life in prison or even death. - Edward J. Snowden
Mr. Patiño told reporters that he did not have and could not share specific information about Mr. Snowden's whereabouts, but he said that Ecuador had been in contact with the authorities in Russia, where Mr. Snowden reportedly arrived from Hong Kong on Sunday. As my colleagues David Herszenhorn and Ellen Barry reported from Moscow, Mr. Snowden has not been photographed or seen in public in Russia.
