Bolivia leader in Vienna, but not Snowden: Austria

By
AFP
|
Bolivia leader in Vienna, but not Snowden: Austria
VIENNA: Bolivian President Evo Morales is at Vienna airport, but fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden is not on board his plane, an Austrian foreign ministry official confirmed early Wednesday.

"President Morales will leave early Wednesday morning for La Paz," the Bolivian capital, ministry spokesman Alexander Schallenberg told AFP. Austria did not know why Morales's plane had landed there, he added.

Earlier, Bolivia's Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca accused France and Portugal of denying Morales's plane entry to its airspace in what he said was the mistaken belief that Snowden was on board the plane.

"The president was forced to land in Vienna," he told reporters in La Paz, adding that Morales's life had been put in danger by what he described as a forced emergency landing.

"There were unfounded rumours that Mr Snowden may have been on board the
aircraft," Choquehuanca said.

Morales, who was flying back from a trip to Moscow, had said earlier in the day that if Snowden submitted an asylum request, Bolivia would be willing to consider it.

Bolivia is one of 21 nations to which Snowden had applied for asylum, according to the anti-secrecy WikiLeaks website.