Ireland becomes second state to reject US request to arrest Edward Snowden on arrival
Dublin joins HK in ruling that request offered no good reasons to deny whistle-blower his liberty
Ireland's High Court has rejected a US request to detain Edward Snowden if he lands on Irish soil because the request lacked the necessary details for it to do so, in a move similar to Hong Kong's handling of the American surveillance whistle-blower.
Dublin is the first jurisdiction since Hong Kong to legally rebuff Washington's calls to detain the former National Security Agency contractor, who last month leaked classified documents to the media exposing controversial US cyberspying programmes.
Snowden is on the run after the US government filed espionage and theft charges against him and revoked his passport. He has been in the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport since flying there from Hong Kong on June 23.
The 30-year-old's earlier decision to apply to 21 countries for political asylum prompted fears that he could pass through Ireland's Shannon Airport en route to safe haven in South America.
This led to the US applying for a provisional arrest warrant through its embassy in Dublin, according to Irish media reports.
In a High Court ruling in Dublin last week, Judge Colm Mac Eochaidh refused the application because US authorities had failed to detail where the alleged offences of espionage had taken place.