Asylum in Russia
Edward Snowden asks Russia for asylum
Four days after saying he would seek temporary asylum in Russia, fugitive NSA contractor Edward Snowden met with a pro-Kremlin lawyer Tuesday at Moscow’s airport and together they drafted his application, the lawyer told Russian news services.
Anatoly Kucherena, a member of Russia’s Public Chamber, a citizen’s advisory council, said Snowden then handed the application over to a government official who had been invited to Sheremetyevo Airport to receive it.
Appearing on Russian television, Kucherena said Snowden wrote in his request that his life would be under threat and that he fears torture and persecution in the United States.
He has been charged in the United States with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 for revelations about the NSA’s data gathering program.
The Federal Migration Service has up to three months to consider Snowden’s application, an official told the Itar-Tass news agency. Temporary asylum, by law, is good for one year, but it can be extended. If granted to him, Snowden would have the right to move freely within Russia.
For the time being, though, he faces a continued stay at Sheremetyevo or a move to a government shelter for refugees, the head of the Federal Migration Service’s Public Council, Vladimir Volokh, told the Interfax news agency.
Kucherena said Snowden has no specific plans to travel onward, but President Vladimir Putin said Monday that he doesn’t expect the American to stay in Russia for long, even if he is granted asylum. Snowden has said that he wants to take up residence in Venezuela or one of several other Latin American countries.
Tuesday was his 23d day in the airport transit zone, where he has been stranded since arriving on a flight from Hong Kong on June 23.
Kucherena was one of a mixed group of Russians politicians, prominent lawyers and human rights activists who met with Snowden on Friday at the airport. Tantyana Lokshina, of Human Rights Watch, said she went reluctantly and that the whole episode appeared to be stage-managed. She said the question of whether Snowden had been in discussions with Russian intelligence agents over what he knows did not come up.
Russia has been unwilling to turn Snowden over to the United States, while also appearing to be less than eager to allow him to stay.
But the U.S. government’s efforts to get Snowden back to the United States, including the application of heavy pressure on potential transit and asylum-offering nations, have effectively trapped him in Russia, Putin said.
(Published by The Washington Post – July 16, 2013)