German NDR television issued a further snippet ahead of a broadcast late Sunday in Europe of an exclusive interview with Snowden in which the intelligence whistleblower claims that US officials wanted him killed. 
 
 "These people, and they are government officials, have said they would love to put a bullet in my head or poison me when I come out of the supermarket, and then watch as I die in the shower," he told NDR interviewer Hubert Seipel, who said the interview took place last Thursday. 
 
 Snowden, who was granted temporary asylum in Russia in August, referred in the interview to a report by US website BuzzFeed of explicit threats against him from unnamed Pentagon and National Security Agency (NSA) officials. 
 
 The former NSA contractor is wanted by US authorities on treason charges for disclosing details of a vast intelligence operation that monitored millions of phone calls and emails across the world. 
 
 The interview was aired on German ARD television, of which NDR is a member, with a German-language voice-over late on Sunday, European time. 
 
 In the ARD talkshow Günter Jauch run prior to the interview's broadcast, former US ambassador to Berlin John Kornblum was asked where Snowden would be in 10 years time. 
 
 Kornblum said he expected Snowden would return to the United States under a deal. "I believe there will be an arrangment," Kornblum said. 
 
 Industrial espionage too? 
 
 In an earlier snippet released online late on Saturday by the public broadcaster NDR, Snowden claimed that the NSA was involved in industrial espionage and did not limit its espionage to issues of US national security. 
 
 "If there is information at [German electronics and engineering giant] Siemens that they think would be beneficial to the national interests, not the national security, of the United States, they will go after that information and they'll take it," Snowden said. 
 
 NDR's interviewer Seipel, in a pre-broadcast interview in German also published online by NDR, said Snowden's sole "life insurance" was that he had entrusted journalists of the New York Times, Washington Post and Britain's Guardian with the material. 
 
 At regular intervals, Seipel said, these media outlets triggered a series of "small thematic bombs." 
 
 'Very carefully' selected documents 
 
 "The NSA is still trying to guess, how much material it involves. At the start there was talk of 200,000, then of 600,000 and now there are around 1.7 million documents," Seipel said. 
 
 Snowden had "very carefully" selected documents that rather than focusing on individual persons, focused on the structure of the US secret services and alleged "violations," Seipel said. 
 
 "He has shown what happens within this apparatus, also in connection with other services." 
 
 "The accusation that he has endangered the lives of thousands of soldiers or secret service employees is in my view feeble-minded," Seipel said, adding that Snowden had a "very strong" sense of justice. 
 
 "That [President Barack] Obama said he was not a patriot is for him, I think, quite difficult enough." 
 
 Interview arranged via 'safeguards' 
 
 The interviewer said Snowden was "very precise in what he says, but naturally was also very cautious" to avoid breaching the terms of his asylum in Russia. 
 
 Seipel said the NDR team conducted the exclusive interview using three cameras and a microphone after organizing the meeting using encrypted phone calls and several other "safeguard measures." 
 
 On Thursday, in a question-and-answer session on the "Free Snowden" website, the fugitive ruled out returning to the United States, where he said there was no chance of a free trial. 
 
 ipj/msh (dpa, Reuters, AFP) ||||| A picture of Edward Snowden, a contractor at the National Security Agency (NSA), is seen on a computer screen displaying a page of a Chinese news website, in Beijing in this June 13, 2013 photo illustration. 
 
 BERLIN Former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden told German TV on Sunday about reports that U.S. government officials want to assassinate him for leaking secret documents about the NSA's collection of telephone records and emails. 
 
 In what German public broadcaster ARD said was Snowden's first television interview, Snowden also said he believes the NSA has monitored other top German government officials along with Chancellor Angela Merkel. 
 
 Snowden told ARD that he felt there are "significant threats" to his life but he said that he nevertheless sleeps well because he believes he did the right thing by informing the public about the NSA's activities. 
 
 "I'm still alive and don't lose sleep for what I did because it was the right thing to do," said Snowden at the start of what ARD said was a six-hour interview that was filmed in a Moscow hotel suite. ARD aired 40 minutes of the six-hour interview. 
 
 "There are significant threats but I sleep very well," he said before referring to a report on a U.S. website that he said quoted anonymous U.S. officials saying his life was in danger. 
 
 "These people, and they are government officials, have said they would love to put a bullet in my head or poison me when I come out of the supermarket and then watch me die in the shower," Snowden said. 
 
 Questions about U.S. government spying on civilians and foreign officials became heated last June when Snowden leaked documents outlining the widespread collection of telephone records and email. 
 
 Snowden was granted asylum in Russia last summer after fleeing the United States, where he is wanted on espionage charges for leaking information about government surveillance practices. 
 
 The revelations shocked Germany, a country especially sensitive after the abuses by the Gestapo during the Nazi reign and the Stasi in Communist East Germany during the Cold War. 
 
 Reports the NSA monitored Merkel's mobile phone have added to the anger in Germany, which has been pushing for a 'no-spy' agreement with the United States, a country it considers to be among its closest allies. 
 
 "What I can say is that we know that Angela Merkel was monitored by the NSA," said Snowden, wearing a dark suit and loose-fitting white shirt. "But the question is how logical is it that she's the only one who was monitored, how likely is it that she was the German person the NSA was watching? 
 
 "I'd say that it's not very likely that anyone who was watching the German government was only watching Merkel and not her advisers nor other government officials nor ministers, heads of industries or even local government officials." 
 
 Snowden said the NSA is active in industrial espionage and will grab any intelligence it can get its hands on regardless of its national security value. He said the NSA doesn't limit its espionage to issues of national security and he cited German engineering firm Siemens as a target. 
 
 "If there's information at Siemens that's beneficial to U.S. national interests - even if it doesn't have anything to do with national security - then they'll take that information nevertheless," Snowden said, according to ARD, which recorded the interview in Russia where he has claimed asylum. 
 
 TARGETS 
 
 Snowden's claim the NSA is engaged in industrial espionage follows a New York Times report earlier this month that the NSA put software in almost 100,000 computers around the world, allowing it to carry out surveillance on those devices and could provide a digital highway for cyberattacks. 
 
 The NSA planted most of the software after gaining access to computer networks, but has also used a secret technology that allows it entry even to computers not connected to the Internet, the newspaper said, citing U.S. officials, computer experts and documents leaked by Snowden. 
 
 The newspaper said the technology had been in use since at least 2008 and relied on a covert channel of radio waves transmitted from tiny circuit boards and USB cards secretly inserted in the computers. 
 
 Frequent targets of the program, code-named Quantum, included units of the Chinese military and industrial targets. 
 
 Snowden faces criminal charges after fleeing to Hong Kong and then Russia, where he was granted at least a year's asylum. 
 
 He was charged with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national security information and giving classified intelligence data to an unauthorized person. 
 
 (Editing by Sophie Hares and Bernard Orr)
– Edward Snowden believes top American government officials want him dead—but he still sleeps well at night because he knows he did the right thing. In an interview with a German broadcaster, the NSA leaker said he was aware of "significant threats" to his life, Reuters reports. "These people, and they are government officials, have said they would love to put a bullet in my head or poison me when I come out of the supermarket and then watch me die in the shower," he said. But despite the assassination threats, "I'm still alive and don't lose sleep for what I did because it was the right thing to do," said Snowden, speaking in a Moscow hotel. The interviewer said Snowden was "very precise in what he says, but naturally was also very cautious" to stay on the right side of his conditions of asylum in Russia, where authorities have said he can extend his stay, reports Deutsche Welle. During the interview, Snowden also claimed that the NSA is involved in industrial espionage.