US spokesman said: "Torture is illegal in the US"

In the news : Snowden won’t be tortured or executed, US tells Russia   http://www.irishexaminer.com/world/snowden-wont-be-tortured-or-executed-us-tells-russia-238092.html

Whistleblower Edward Snowden

The unbelievable message from a country where even an innocent passersby is beaten by the police on the street witnessed by hundreds of onlookers.

“The United States has made a formal promise to Russia not to torture or execute Edward Snowden if he is sent home to face charges of illegally disclosing government secrets, and the Kremlin said Russian and US security agencies are in talks over his fate.”

Russia has refused to extradite Snowden, who leaked details of a secret US surveillance programme including phone and internet data, and is now considering his request for a temporary asylum.

In a letter dated Tuesday, Jul 23, and released on Friday, US Attorney General Eric Holder wrote that he sought to dispel claims about what would happen to Snowden if he is sent home. “Mr.  Snowden has filed papers seeking temporary asylum in Russia on the grounds that if he were returned to the United States, he would be tortured and would face the death penalty. These claims are entirely without merit.” 

Let us not forget that good old USA is a land where death sentence is a must and a state where Guantanamo Gulag is an institution, warrantless arrests is legal under the Patriot law, who could really guarantee that a whistleblower like Snowden won’t be tortured and eventually executed? They did it to American citizens caught with the Arabs in Iraq and are still languishing it Gitmo.

That promise is just another cosmetic promise to most observers and is bound to be broken.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia’s FSB and its US counterpart, the FBI, were in talks over Snowden, whose stay at the Moscow Sheremetyevo airport has further strained Moscow-Washington ties.

Russian president Vladimir Putin had expressed “strong determination”, he said, not to let relations suffer over the dispute “no matter how the situation develops”. Putin himself is not personally dealing with the problem, the spokesman said. But he reiterated Moscow’s stance that Russia “did not hand over, does not hand over and will not hand over anybody”. 

“The United States maybe understands that they are not going to get Snowden, so my theory is that they are trying to save face and stop Snowden from publishing new exposés,” Andrei Soldatov said, adding that he was sceptical this could be done.

Snowden’s supporters have worried he could face the same fate as Private First Class Bradley Manning, the US soldier on trial for providing documents to WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy group. On his arrest, Manning was placed in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day with guards checking on him every few minutes. 

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