HAVANA, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Cuba on Wednesday criticized the European governments that reportedly barred Bolivian President Evo Morales' plane from their airspace on suspicion he was trying to sneak U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden into Latin America.
"That decision offends all Latin America and the Caribbean," the Cuban Foreign Ministry said in a statement published by the official daily Granma.
It was "unacceptable, unfounded and arbitrary the prohibition on the Bolivian president to fly over France, Italy, Portugal and Spain, under the pretext of carrying the former agent Edward Snowden, pursued by Washington for leaking documents on a world cyber espionage network," the statement added.
France, Spain, Italy and Portugal canceled for several hours the flight permits for Morales' plane overnight Tuesday, forcing him to make an emergency landing in Austria, and to stay there for more than 13 hours.
The Bolivian plane, which was taking Morales home from a gas conference in Moscow, was reportedly searched in Vienna to determine that Snowden was not aboard before the aircraft was allowed to depart.
EU Transport spokeswoman Helen Kearns said it was for national governments to permit planes into their space.
Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, was charged by the U.S. government with espionage after he divulged massive U.S. surveillance programs that spied on telephone and Internet communications.
Snowden has requested political asylum to about 20 countries, including Cuba and Russia.
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