HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong officials say the U.S. government got National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden's middle name wrong in documents it submitted to back a request for his arrest.
Snowden hid in Hong Kong for several weeks after revealing secret U.S. surveillance programs. Hong Kong allowed him to fly to Moscow on Sunday, saying a U.S. request for his arrest did not fully comply with its requirements.
Justice Secretary Rimsky Yuen said that discrepancies in the paperwork filed by U.S. authorities were to blame, although the U.S. Justice Department denied that Wednesday.
Yuen said Hong Kong immigration records listed Snowden's middle name as Joseph, but the U.S. government used the name James in some documents and referred to him only as Edward J. Snowden in others.
"These three names are not exactly the same, therefore we believed that there was a need to clarify," he said Tuesday.
Yuen said U.S. authorities also did not provide Snowden's passport number.
The decision to let Snowden leave Hong Kong irked the White House, which said it damaged U.S.-Chinese relations. U.S. officials implied that Beijing had a hand in letting Snowden leave Hong Kong, a former British colony that is now a semiautonomous region with its own legal system.