Snowden's leak disks destroyed by UK spy agency to avoid Chinese access

The UK spy agency GCHQ reportedly destroyed all the hard drives containing data leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden, which was acquired by Guardian newspaper, in a bid to keep the classified information safe from Chinese access.

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger claimed that a pair of GCHQ officials monitored the process of destruction of the drives just to make sure that there was nothing left behind in the mangled bits of metals which could be of any possible interest to the Chinese agents.

Calling the incident as 'one of the most bizarre moments in the Guardian's long history', Rusbridger said that the drives were destroyed in the basement of the newspaper's north London office, a month or so ago.

Rusbridger said that the destruction was done after weeks of being pressuried by the GCHQ officials demanding the return or destruction of the classified data which has left the world in a debate over the limits of such governmental surveillance on citizens' activities, the report added.