Snowden applied for asylum at the consular office at Moscow's Sheremtyevo airport at 10.30pm on Sunday through his Wikileaks handler, Sarah Harrison, a consular official said.
"The UK citizen Sarah Harrison passed on a request by Edward Snowden to be granted political asylum," said Kim Shevchenko, a staff member at the airport's consular department. He said he then called the foreign ministry, who sent a courier one hour later to pick up the request.
[...]
Putin said on Monday: "If he wants to go somewhere and someone will take him, go ahead. If he wants to stay here, there is one condition – he must stop his work aimed at bringing harm to our American partners, as strange as that sounds coming from my mouth."
[...]
Snowden met Russian diplomats on Monday morning and handed them a list of 15 countries where he would like to apply for political asylum, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing an unnamed source in the foreign ministry.
Putin appeared to leave himself some latitude, noting that Snowden would be unlikely to meet his conditions for staying in Russia.
"Considering that he considers himself a human rights activist and a fighter for human rights, he probably doesn't plan to stop this work, so he should choose a host country and head there," Putin said. "When this will happen I, unfortunately, do not know."
UK Guardian
No comments:
Post a Comment