Bolivia’s Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca speaks during a news conference in La Paz, Bolivia, Tuesday, July 2, 2013. Bolivia’s foreign minister says the plane bringing President Evo Morales home from Russia was rerouted to Austria after France and Portugal refused to let it to cross their airspace because of suspicions that NSA leaker Edward Snowden was on board.LA PAZ, Bolivia – The plane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales home from Russia was rerouted to Austria on Tuesday after France and Portugal refused to let it cross their airspace because of suspicions that NSA leaker Edward Snowden was on board, the country’s foreign minister said.
Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca denied that Snowden was on the plane, which landed in Vienna, and said France and Portugal would have to explain why they canceled authorization for the plane.
“We don’t know who invented this lie. We want to denounce to the international community this injustice with the plane of President Evo Morales,” Choquehuanca said from La Paz. Morales had earlier met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit of major gas exporters in the Kremlin.
In an interview with Russia Today television, Morales said that his South American country would be willing to consider granting asylum to Snowden.
Leaks by Snowden, a former NSA systems analyst, have revealed the NSA’s sweeping data collection of U.S. phone records and some Internet traffic, though U.S. intelligence officials have said the programs are aimed at targeting foreigners and terrorist suspects mostly overseas.