Snowden: I’m not hiding from justice

The former CIA employee who leaked top-secret information about US surveillance programmes said in an interview in Hong Kong he is not attempting to hide from justice but hopes to use the city as a base to reveal wrongdoing.

Edward Snowden dropped out of sight after checking out of a Hong Kong hotel on Monday. The South China Morning Post newspaper said it was able to locate and interview him yesterday. It provided brief excerpts from the interview on its website.

It said Snowden, who has been both praised and condemned for releasing documents about US phone and internet surveillance programmes, said he was “neither a traitor nor hero. I’m an American”.