WASHINGTON: A journalist who published the first reports from Edward Snowden’s leaked documents offered a detailed rebuttal Monday to allegations that Russian and Chinese spies accessed the former intelligence contractor’s files.

Glenn Greenwald, writing on the online news website The Intercept, said the reports by the Sunday Times and BBC were based on the false premise that Snowden kept possession of the files he took from the US National Security Agency.

Greenwald, part of a team of journalists who met Snowden in Hong Kong before publishing the explosive articles about vast surveillance programs, said Snowden had no files to be accessed.

“Snowden has said unequivocally that when he left Hong Kong, he took no files with him, having given them to the journalists with whom he worked, and then destroying his copy precisely so that it wouldn’t be vulnerable,” Greenwald said.

“How, then, could Russia have obtained Snowden’s files as the story claims... if he did not even have physical possession of them? The only way this smear works is if they claim Snowden lied, and that he did in fact have files with him after he left Hong Kong.” The Times also reported that Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda, had some 58,000 intelligence documents when he was detained at London’s Heathrow Airport after visiting Snowden in Moscow.