Snowden wants asylum in Russia

Associated Press

MOSCOW

Edward Snowden emerged from weeks of hiding in a Moscow airport Friday, still defiant but willing to stop leaking secrets about U.S. surveillance programs if Russia will give him asylum until he can move on to Latin America.

Snowden’s meeting with Russian officials and rights activists cleared up uncertainty about where the former National Security Agency systems analyst is, but left open the big question: What comes next?

Snowden said he was ready to meet President Vladimir Putin’s condition that he stop leaking secrets if it means Russia would give him shelter that eventually could help him get to Latin America. There was no immediate response from Putin’s office, but speakers of both houses of the Kremlin- controlled parliament spoke in support of Snowden’s plea.

Vyacheslav Nikonov, a senior lawmaker with the main Kremlin party, described Snowden as “a bit nervous but smiling” and noted his “perfect haircut.” He said that when asked to describe his stay at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, Snowden answered with one word: “Safe.”

Snowden is believed to have been stuck in the airport’s transit zone since his arrival June 23 from Hong Kong, where he had gone before his revelations were made public. He booked a seat on a Cuba-bound flight the next day but did not get on the plane and had remained out of the public eye until Friday.

Putin has said Snowden stayed in the transit zone and thus technically didn’t cross the Russian border. He also insisted that Russian special services haven’t contacted the NSA leaker — a claim that drew skeptical winks from some security analysts who noted that Russian intelligence agencies would be all too eager to learn the secrets in his possession.

Sergei Nikitin of Amnesty International’s Moscow office said that plainclothes men who looked like officers of Russian special services attended the meeting, which took place in a cordoned section of a corridor. The exact location was unclear as hundreds of journalists were left in a hallway outside the meeting area, behind a gray door marked “staff only.”

Nikitin said participants were asked not to take photos and video. “Snowden himself requested that, saying his pictures would give too much information to the U.S. special services,” Nikitin said.

Human Rights Watch’s Tanya Lokshina posted a photo of Snowden at the gathering on her Facebook page, the first new image of him since the Guardian newspaper broke the story of widespread U.S. Internet surveillance based on his leaks.

A brief video of the meeting’s opening also appeared on the Russian news site Life News, showing Snowden speaking, then being interrupted by a flight announcement on the airport’s public-address system.

“I’ve heard that a lot in the past weeks,” Snowden said, smiling ironically.

In an opening statement released by the secret- spilling group WikiLeaks, which adopted his case, Snowden said he wanted to accept all asylum offers and travel to the countries that have made them “to extend my personal thanks to their people and leaders.”

He also denounced the United States for what he said was pressuring its allies to block him from their airspace. Snowden could be hoping that Washington would not risk trying to block a flight he was on if he had Russian asylum.

In the short term, he could also be seeking asylum in Russia simply as a way to get out of the airport and move freely.