Bolivian President’s plane forced to Vienna on Snowden issue

A plane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales home from a summit in Moscow was rerouted to Austria on Tuesday after France and Portugal refused to let it cross their airspace on suspicion that US surveillance programme leaker Edward Snowden was on board.

The plane has now taken off from Austria for La Paz, according to the latest reports.

Officials in both Austria and Bolivia said that Snowden was not on the plane. The suspicion arose mainly because Morales had suggested while in Russia, that his government would be willing to consider granting asylum to Snowden.

Bolivia's ambassador to the United Nations also told reporters in Geneva today that Austria's decision to search the plane was an act of aggression and a violation of international law.

Snowden is believed to be in a Moscow airport transit area, seeking asylum from one of more than a dozen countries.

A furious Bolivian foreign minister David Choquehuanca said France and Portugal would have to explain why they cancelled authorisation for the plane, claiming that the decision had put the president's life at risk.

"We don't know who invented this lie" that Snowden was travelling with Morales, Choquehuanca said in La Paz. "We want to denounce to the international community this injustice with the plane of President Evo Morales."

He said that after France and Portugal cancelled authorisation for the flight, Spain's government allowed the plane to be refuelled in its territory. From there the plane flew on to Vienna.

French government officials reached overnight said they could not confirm whether Morales' plane was denied permission to fly over France. Officials at Portugal's Foreign Ministry and National Civil Aviation Authority could not be reached to comment.

Leaks by Snowden, a former NSA systems analyst, have revealed the NSA's sweeping data collection of US phone records and some internet traffic.

While Bolivia's foreign minister had earlier said officials did not know who was behind the "lie" that Snowden was on Morales' plane, defence minister Ruben Saavedra was more direct in blaming Washington.

"We want to declare very firmly that it was an American story that Edward Snowden was on this flight," Saavedra at the VIP terminal of Vienna's airport. "This is a plot by the US government to destroy president Morales' image. We say this simply is a lie. And we will confirm this."

Morales himself was present during the improvised press conference but chose not to speak to reporters.

In Washington, the State Department would not comment directly when asked to speak to the matter and referred the AP to statements on Snowden made at the department's daily briefing.

Earlier Tuesday, department spokesman Patrick Ventrell would not discuss how the Obama administration might respond if Snowden left the Moscow airport. "We're not there yet," he said.