The British government has asked the "New York Times" to destroy copies of documents disclosed by former US National Security Agency (NSA) spy Edward Snowden, which relate to the operations of the spy agency and its British partners GCHQ (British Communications Headquarters). , sources familiar with the matter said.
A Reuters source stated that the British request sent to the editor-in-chief of "The Times" Jill Abramson by a senior official of the British embassy in Washington was not answered. British officials indicated that they would be persistent in their demands to "The Times", but they have not been contacted again, one of the sources said.
In yesterday's announcement, the editor of the London "Guardian" Alan Rusbridger said that his newspaper, which was previously threatened with possible legal actions by the British authorities, destroyed copies of the leaked documents it received from Snowden on July 20.
Rusbridger said that two days later the Guardian informed British authorities that material relating to GCHQ had been sent to the New York Times and the independent investigative reporting group ProPublica.
Rusbridger added in a statement that the British authorities then needed "more than three weeks for someone from the British government to contact the 'New York Times'".
"We understood that the British government in Washington met with representatives of the 'New York Times' in mid-August - more than three weeks after the 'Guardian' material was destroyed in London. No one has contacted ProPublica so far," Rusbridger said. "This five-week period during which nothing has happened says otherwise than the alarmist claims" the British government made in testimony filed Friday at a hearing in a London court in connection with the authorities' investigation into whether the use of Snowden's information violated British terrorism laws and official secrets.
A spokesman for the British embassy in Washington told Reuters: "We have presented a statement to a court in Britain explaining why we are trying to secure copies of more than 58.000 stolen intelligence documents - to protect public and national security."
A spokeswoman for the "New York Times" did not want to comment on the allegations.
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