Journalist Claims Secret US Flight 'To Capture Snowden' Overflew Scottish Airspace (thenational.scot)

schwit1 writes with a story in The National (a newspaper which makes no bones about it support for an independent Scotland) describing the charge laid by a Scottish journalist that in 2013 a secret U.S. flight involving a plane involved in CIA renditions crossed Scottish airspace, as part of a secret plan to capture whistleblower Edward Snowden. Alex Salmond, then Scotland's First Minister, is calling for transparency with regard to the knowledge that the UK government had of the flight and its mission. According to the report, The plane, which passed above the Outer Hebrides, the Highlands and Aberdeenshire, was dispatched from the American east coast on June 24 2013, the day after Snowden left Hong Kong for Moscow. The craft was used in controversial US 'rendition' missions. Reports by Scottish journalist Duncan Campbell claim the aircraft, traveling well above the standard aviation height at 45,000 feet and without a filed flight plan, was part of a mission to capture Snowden following his release of documents revealing mass surveillance by US and UK secret services. ... [N977GA, the aircraft named as involved in this flight] was previously identified by Dave Willis in Air Force Monthly as an aircraft used for CIA rendition flights of US prisoners. This included the extradition of cleric Abu Hamza from the UK. Snowden accused the Danish Government of conspiring in his arrest. In response to flight reports, he said: "Remember when the Prime Minister Rasmussen said Denmark shouldn't respect asylum law in my case? Turns out he had a secret."

Comments

Okay...

[Rei]

I don't know any of the details of what they're alleging here concerning Snowden. But Abu Hamza wasn't "rendered". He underwent an 8 year extradition process involving tons of appeals, ultimately his case to block extradition failed (after receiving binding pledges from the US as to the maximum sentence that would be sought and in what sort of conditions he'd be kept in), and he was extradited to the US to be tried on terrorism charges. Last year he was sentenced to life in prison for them.

The fact that they're playing fast and loose with the terminology on the stuff that's easy to double check here makes me question this report. There might be something to it, but it's not a good start. Extraordinary rendition is a very serious charge to levy. And Abu Hamza wasn't rendered, it was an entirely above-board, fully within normal legal processes extradition.

Re:Okay...

[spacepimp]

How about Assange himself to Democracy Now!?

JULIAN ASSANGE: He was in Moscow. And then we looked for, well, how can we get him out of Moscow without a diplomatic—sorry, without a passport? Because the airplanes won’t take him, commercial airliners won’t take him. And we noticed that there was an oil conference in Moscow, and President Maduro was going to be there, amongst other presidents. And one of those other presidents was President Evo Morales. Now, we then reached out our feelers to Maduro, who had already given an informal, and maybe even by that stage public, offer of asylum to Snowden. But we decided that because there was so much surveillance, that in this communication our code word for "Maduro" would be "Morales," because he was so surveilled. And we had lawyers involved, and non-technical people who couldn’t really communicate themselves. And then Evo made a joke, while he was in Russia at this oil conference. President Evo Morales joked that—at the end of an interview, he said, well, he was off to meet Snowden now. It was just a joke.

Anyway, these things seemed to have combined, the interceptions of us and this joke by Morales. And the U.S. intelligence services put two and two together and made 22, and decided that they then had to expend vast amounts of political capital, ringing up the countries of Western Europe and trying to close their airspace to a presidential jet flight from Evo Morales, which they did. And Spain, France and Portugal closed their airspace, incredibly, to a presidential jet flight, because U.S. intelligence had asked them to, and done so without any legal or administrative process. And then the Morales flight took off and tried to go into its overflight path to refuel in the Canary Islands, to go off to Bolivia. They couldn’t do so because the airspace had been closed, and it was forced to land in Vienna. And then there was a 12-hour process, where President Morales was stuck in the airport waiting lounge of Vienna because he couldn’t get the clearance anywhere else. Now, a presidential jet is protected under the Vienna Convention. That’s the convention that in fact protects me in this embassy. It surrounds diplomatic territory. And presidential jets are listed as diplomatic territory. So you had a violation, enormous violation, of the Vienna Convention in Vienna.

Now, this really sealed Edward Snowden’s successful asylum application, when eventually it became clear it was too dangerous to take any other option, in Russia, because what could be the Russian response to this downing of President Evo Morales’s flight? The only response that they could give to seem like a credible country is that if he asks for—if Snowden asks for asylum, then they would accept the asylum request. And that’s what ended up happening. So this incredible diplomatic own goal led to this bullying of Western Europe, which provided the ultimate proof that Edward Snowden was being politically persecuted, which is what ended up giving him asylu

Re:British Airspace

[Frigga's Ring]

I've wondered this myself, but several sites - including Wikipedia which states "The United Kingdom (UK) comprises four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland." - all disagree with you.

Re:British Airspace

[petermgreen]

The problem here is the term "country" is vauge. In most contexts when people say country they mean "Sovereign state" which Scotland is not (they had an independence refferendum recently but voted against independence). Yet the constituant parts of the united kingdom are reffered to as countries despite not being sovereign.

Obama lied??

[haruchai]

Wasn't this around the time Obama said on TV that he "wouldn't be scrambling jets to get a 29 year old .....hacker"

Re:British Airspace

[wonkey_monkey]

Scotland is a country. It's not a sovereign state.

Re:British Airspace

[msauve]

Strange how the UK itself disagrees with you. "The United Kingdom is made up of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Its full name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Great Britain, however, comprises only England, Scotland and Wales..."

Re:British Airspace

[msauve]

What does legal control over the airspace matter? "Scottish airspace" was used in a geographic sense. It provided more specificity than saying "UK airspace," and therefore made the statement more informative.

Re:British Airspace

[Pax681]

"Scotland is a country"

Scotland hasn't been a country since 1707. Its a region of the UK. The fact that a lot of scots want to believe its still a country doesn't change the reality of the situation.

Then you don't klnow much bud. Scotland is a country in it's own right and even has a separate and distinct legal system.
As wonkey_monkey says.. it's a country and not a sovereign state. It is one of 4 constituent countries of Great Britain.