Germany's top court said Friday it rejected a bid by leftist opposition parties to call former NSA contractor Edward Snowden as a witness in a parliamentary probe of US intelligence activities. The Federal Constitutional Court said in a statement it did not have jurisdiction in the case brought by the Greens and Left parties in October against the government and the parliamentary committee conducting the investigation.
The probe, launched in March, aims to assess the extent of spying by the National Security Agency and its partners on German citizens and politicians, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, and whether German intelligence aided its activities. The government and the committee have blocked calls to bring Snowden, who is regarded as a traitor by the US administration and subject to an arrest warrant, to Germany from Russia where he has been granted temporary asylum. Officials have cited fears of a strain on ties with Washington if they invited Snowden and then refused to extradite him to face charges in the United States.
The ruling left-right coalition would prefer to question Snowden in Russia or via a video link but Snowden has declined these options. The court said the case did not pertain to a constitutional right of the minority parties on the committee to question a witness but rather a "procedural review of the committee's work". It said Germany's Federal Court of Justice would be better suited to hear the case. It was not immediately clear whether the parties would appeal to that tribunal.
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