Experts: Snowden Extradition from Hong Kong Could be Complicated

Experts said Monday that any attempt to extradite the man who says he leaked details about the U.S. government's secret monitoring of phone calls and Internet use from Hong Kong could be long and complicated.

The U.S. and Hong Kong signed an extradition treaty in 1996, just before the British handed over control of the territory to China, in which both parties agreed to hand over fugitives. While Hong Kong is a semi-autonomous Chinese territory, Beijing can veto extraditions if it believes returning a suspect to a foreign country would impinge on its "essential public interest or policy."