Intelligence leaker to seek asylum in Ecuador as US pressures Moscow to expel him
MOSCOW: US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden prepared to fly out of Russia yesterday to seek asylum in Ecuador, as Washington demanded Moscow hand over the fugitive to face espionage charges at home.
Snowden left Hong Kong on a commercial Aeroflot flight on Sunday and is said by Russian officials to have spent the night in a Moscow airport awaiting his onward connection.
Russian security sources said they had no reason to arrest the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, who officials described as an ordinary ‘transit passenger’ who had not crossed the border.
According to Russian state media, he spent the night in the distinctly unglamourous ‘capsule hotel’ Vozdushny Express located inside the departures area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport.
Snowden, the target of a US arrest warrant issued Friday after the IT contractor leaked details of US cyber-espionage programmes to the media, is reportedly booked on a flight to Cuba yesterday from where he could travel on to South America.
Ecuador Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino confirmed that the leftist Latin American country, whose embassy in London is already sheltering WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, was analysing Snowden’s asylum request.
“We will make a decision … we are analysing it,” Patino told reporters yesterday in Hanoi when asked about the high-profile asylum request.
“We know he is in Moscow, we’re in talks with higher authorities,” Patino.
Ecuador’s outspoken leftist President Rafael Correa has championed the cause of Assange and his allies to the fury of the United States.
The White House yesterday urged Moscow to cooperate in bringing Snowden under US custody, citing prior ‘intensified cooperation’ between security services of the two countries, including on the investigation of the Boston Marathon bombings.
“We expect the Russian government to look at all options available to expel Mr Snowden back to the US to face justice for the crimes with which he is charged,” National Security Spokesman Caitlin Hayden said.
A Russian security source earlier told Interfax that there are ‘no grounds’ to detain Snowden as a transit passenger since he is not on Interpol’s wanted list. “He has not committed any crimes in Russia,” the source said. — AFP