In a meeting loan institutions Sometime Saturday evening, Snowden made the decision to leave Hong Kong. Ho received a phone call from Jonathan Man Ho-ching, a lawyer with his firm working closely with Snowden, who relayed the news. With the verbal assurance from the ‘intermediary’ Snowden and his team reasoned that even if he was ambushed at the airport and arrested, he would be in the same position – fighting extradition through the Hong Kong courts – as he would eventually be if he stayed.